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'Historic' climate deal in sight as nations parse final text | A verdict in 2017 could have sweeping consequences for tech startups. | 0fake |
Senate Democrats To FBI: Put Up Or Shut Up About Emails (TWEETS) | Senate Democrats To FBI: Put Up Or Shut Up About Emails (TWEETS) By Darrell Lucus on October 30, 2016 Subscribe
If there was any doubt that FBI Director James Comey’s announcement that the FBI was reviewing potential evidence in the Hillary Clinton email affair backfired spectacularly, it was erased on Saturday night. Four top Senate Democrats gave Comey an ultimatum –give us a full accounting of what you know about this, and do so by Monday.
Senators Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Tom Carper, and Ben Cardin fired off a “what the hell is going on here?” letter to Comey and his nominal boss, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, demanding answers about Comey’s “vaguely worded” letter on Friday afternoon. They are the ranking members of the Senate committees that were most involved in the email server investigation–Intelligence (Feinstein), Judiciary (Leahy), Homeland Security (Carper), and Foreign Relations (Cardin).
Read the full letter here, courtesy Cardin’s Twitter feed.
— Senator Ben Cardin (@SenatorCardin) October 30, 2016
In a colossal understatement, they pointed out that the letter didn’t answer any questions, but in fact left a lot of them unanswered. For one thing, Comey’s letter didn’t clarify whether the FBI even had the emails in its custody, let alone had a chance to review them. Comey also didn’t say whether Hillary sent the emails, or if they even had anything to do with the investigation. Additionally, it represented a radical departure from FBI and Justice Department policy against doing anything that could potentially influence an election.
The Senators also noted that Comey had told his own troops that he didn’t know just how significant those emails were, and that there was a possibility that his letter would be “misunderstood.” In light of the fact that this letter has already been misunderstood, Feinstein, Carper, Leahy, and Cardin want Comey and Lynch–in truth, Comey–to give the Senate “detailed information” about the FBI’s actions no later than the close of business on Monday. To not do so, they add, “would be irresponsible and a disservice to the American people.”
There were already a number of reasons why Comey should be very afraid. For one thing, at the time, the FBI had not even obtained a warrant for the emails it discovered on the laptop of longtime Hillary aide Huma Abedin while investigating her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner, for inappropriate texts with a teenager. So Comey felt the need to alert the House and Senate about these emails, when his people hadn’t even asked a court to review them.
We also know that Comey’s rumored excuse–that the emails were likely to be leaked unless he told Congress about them first–doesn’t wash. Judge Jeanine Pirro , no fan of Hillary, thinks Comey could have easily solved that problem by privately notifying the committee chairmen and putting them on notice that he would know who was behind any leaks.
But on Sunday afternoon, The Washington Post reported that the FBI hadn’t gotten a warrant for those emails despite knowing for at least a month that those messages were potentially relevant to the email server case. It finally obtained a warrant on Sunday night. How is Comey going to explain that to the Senate, especially since he knew how explosive this could have been?
It’s no wonder that Comey’s own troops are steaming mad at him, according to Newsweek and Vanity Fair’s Kurt Eichenwald. Here’s what Eichenwald has learned, by way of review. Word from inside @FBI . FURIOUS at Comey, think he's mishandled public revelations from get go. "Outrageous incompetence" one agent told me.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …his original decision to lay out info on clinton case, then opine on what it meant outside of criminal findings, infuriated these folks..
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 Re: anger within @FBI at Comey. I am getting this at the Special Agent, ASAC and SAC level. Those are the troops. (Most of em GOPrs)….
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 …for Comey to have so angered ppl at the field office level is really, really bad.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016 If Comey's improper comment on ongoing investigation changes polls, @FBI reputation as apolitical will never recover cause of his screwup.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 29, 2016
While Feinstein, Leahy, Carper, and Cardin played good cop, their boss, Minority Leader Harry Reid, played bad cop, accusing Comey of breaking the Hatch Act . I wouldn’t quite go that far. But when the best-case scenario is that Comey was grossly incompetent, that isn’t good.
Comey’s actions may not have risen to the level of criminal conduct. However, it is clear beyond any doubt that he cannot lead. Eichenwald has talked to a number of DOJ officials from both parties who feel the same way. Every current/former Dept. of Justice official I speak 2, GOP or Dem, says Comey must resign/be fired 4 election interference. All outraged.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) October 30, 2016
Unless Comey has a very good explanation for this–and frankly, I doubt there is one–we need to hear only two things from him after he briefs the Senate. He needs to apologize to the American people, and he needs to resign.
( featured image courtesy FBI Flickr feed, part of public domain) About Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC . Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook . Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello. Connect | 1real |
Aleppo, Donald Trump, Istanbul: Your Morning Briefing - The New York Times | Good morning. Here’s what you need to know: • Donald J. Trump questioned whether the U. S. must remain bound to its longstanding One China policy “unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade. ” He also disparaged the American spy agencies that he will count on as commander in chief, dismissing a C. I. A. assessment that Russian hacking had influenced the presidential campaign as “ridiculous. ” Mr. Trump is expected to name as secretary of state Rex W. Tillerson. The chief executive of Exxon Mobil, he has made extensive deals around the globe and has close ties to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin. Above, Mr. Trump at the football game over the weekend. _____ • Prime Minister Hwang is now South Korea’s acting president, after Park ’s powers were suspended last week when the National Assembly vote to impeach her. If the Constitutional Court decides to remove her, here are some contenders to fill the presidency, including Ban the outgoing United Nations secretary general. Our reporter looks at how the scandal and the election of Mr. Trump might be affecting North Korea. _____ • Thousands of readers in the Philippines responded to the photographer Daniel Berehulak’s gruesome documentation of scores of homicides committed as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s antidrug campaign. Some expressed horror, but most applauded Mr. Duterte’s approach. “Slaughter might be harsh but I guess for drug peddlers, they deserve it,” one said. _____ • Syrians are streaming out of eastern Aleppo as government forces continue to hammer neighborhoods with airstrikes, but some are staying. “We are dead either way,” one man told a nurse. The Islamic State appeared to take advantage of the government’s focus on Aleppo, retaking the ancient city of Palmyra. _____ • Turks massed in mourning after twin suicide bombings in Istanbul killed 38 people and wounded scores. A Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, the latest in a series of that have crushed the city’s spirit and economy. “This is the new norm,” one Turk said. _____ • Our columnist Roger Cohen managed to get into one of Australia’s island detention centers for refugees. The world, he writes, “knows no more sustained, sinister or surreal exercise in cruelty than the South Pacific Australia has established for its trickle of the migrant flood. ” • An informal lending network administered through smartphone apps and online platforms is allowing investors in China to make American deals — sometimes inflating prices. • An investigation by The New York Times into the financial maneuvering at Hostess as the Twinkie was reintroduced found a blueprint for how private equity executives have amassed some of the greatest fortunes of the modern era. • Iran’s national airline and Boeing signed a $16. 6 billion deal for 80 airplanes, but its future under a Trump administration is uncertain. • A lawyer for Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, is expected to try to delay her criminal trial today on charges of fiscal negligence in a 2007 arbitration case, when she was France’s finance minister. • The U. S. Federal Reserve Bank has all but announced it will raise its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday for the first time since December 2015. • Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • Jakarta is preparing for the possibility of more terrorist threats after the Indonesian police foiled a major bomb plot over the weekend. [Jakarta Post] • The race for Hong Kong’s next chief executive has become more complicated. Leung the unpopular incumbent, said he would not seek a second term. [The New York Times] • And John Tsang, Hong Kong’s financial secretary, is hinting at a run. [South China Morning Post] • A pioneer is one of the most successful wine growers in China. [Hong Kong Free Press] • A church in southern Nigeria whose construction had been rushed collapsed onto worshipers at an ordination, killing at least 160 people. [Associated Press] • The movement in the United States is trying to improve its image, but its core message of racial separation and white supremacy is still the same. [The New York Times] • David Hallberg, the first American dancer to join the Bolshoi Ballet, returns to the stage two and a half years after an ankle injury. He performs in Sydney with the Australian Ballet on Tuesday, Friday and Dec. 19 and 21. • China has plans to recreate a model American farm, and possibly an entire Midwestern community, in Hebei Province, inspired by President Xi Jinping’s visit to Iowa in 2012. • And in our Daily 360 video, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei takes us on a stroll through Tompkins Square Park in New York, his old stamping grounds from 1983 to 1993. Four exhibitions of his work are currently in the city. Last week, the Pizzagate case escalated when a man fired a rifle inside a Washington restaurant falsely accused in fake news stories of ties to a child abuse ring. The history of the “ ” suffix begins with the 1970s Watergate scandal that led to President Richard M. Nixon’s resignation. Since then, the suffix has been synonymous with political wrongdoing. The Times columnist William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter, popularized the practice. He introduced readers to Nannygate, Scalpgate, and Troopergate during the Clinton administration. Mr. Safire later admitted that he might have been trying to minimize Nixon’s crimes. But “ ” scandals have not been limited to the United States. Britain has had its share, and in Germany, there was the 1987 Waterkantgate, a scandal around a West German politician that resulted in his mysterious death. India had snoopgate, and Malaysia had cowgate. Argentina and Venezuela’s relations soured over Valijagate — which, if you speak Spanish, you’d have guessed turned on the contents of a suitcase. The unoriginal suffix even gets recycled now. Pizzagate was previously used to describe a soccer player’s use of the food as a weapon, and when New York’s mayor committed a : using silverware to eat a slice. Evan Gershkovich contributed reporting. _____ Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. | 0fake |
CAN WE ADD DIRTY MONEY ‘LAUNDERING’ To The Obama $1.7 Billion Iran Ransom Payment? | A member of the House Intelligence Committee is accusing the Obama administration of laundering some $1.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Iran through a complicated network that included the New York Federal Reserve and several European banks, according to conversations with sources and new information obtained by the lawmaker and viewed by the Washington Free BeaconNew disclosures made by the Treasury Department to Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), a House Intelligence Committee member, show that an initial $400 million cash payment to Iran was wired to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) and then converted from U.S. dollars into Swiss francs and moved to an account at the Swiss National Bank, according to a copy of communication obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon.Once the money was transferred to the Swiss Bank, the FRBNY withdrew the funds from its account as Swiss franc banknotes and the U.S. Government physically transported them to Geneva before personally overseeing the handover to an agent of Iran s central bank, according to the documents. It looks as if the White House made just about every corner of the executive branch complicit in covering up the extent of its payments to Iran, the source said. Congress was already aggressively looking into payments involving the State, Treasury, and Energy Departments. Now it s the Justice Department, too. We already know that top officials from Justice objected strongly to the ransom deal, but were overruled. Congress wants to know what happened and why. Read more: WFB | 1real |
WATCH: Trump Supporter Calls For Right-Wing Gun Nuts To Come Shoot Black People At GOP Convention | A racist Trump supporter who couldn t hack it as a police officer is calling for right-wing militia members, former police officers, and military veterans to grab their guns and come to Cleveland to shoot any black people they find protesting at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland next month. I am encouraging patriots and Trump supporters and those that support liberty and freedom to come lawfully armed with lethal and non-lethal weaponry, Jim Stachowiak declared in a video directed at lone wolf patriots. Stachowiak was booted out of the police force for misconduct after only three years on the job, yet he thinks he is capable of patrolling the outside of the GOP convention as a pretend law enforcement official.After slandering the Black Lives Matter movement by claiming that the group has issued death threats aimed at Donald Trump, Stachowiak called for armed volunteers to join him at the convention to intimidate and even kill black protesters They have threatened to cause riots in Cleveland and nationwide, he said. It is our sworn duty and obligation for all those like me and many of you who have taken the oath to defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic. Then he repeated Donald Trump s suggestion that President Obama is a terrorist sympathizer and urged patriots to use their Second Amendment against Black Lives Matter members, whom he also referred to as domestic terrorists. We should answer the call with our Second Amendment. Yes, I m encouraging patriots to come prepared to defend this nation against a domestic terrorist organization supported by the terrorist in the White House, Obama Come prepared, because this may spark another revolution. It won t be decided if that spark turns into a bonfire by we who love liberty, for we will defend, not attack. We won t act, but we will react. Here s the video via YouTube.Stachowiak is nothing more than a right-wing terrorist trying to organize another Bundy-style standoff that he hopes will turn into some kind of bloody revolution. Gun nuts like him are the reason why we need serious gun restrictions in this country. If anybody shouldn t be allowed to have a gun it s this guy. He is literally calling for gun violence against back protesters who show up to the GOP convention. Hopefully, the FBI has seen this video and are planning to take Stachowiak into custody before we end up with another mass shooting.Featured image via screenshot | 1real |
Obama Just Did Something Awesome On National TV That No President EVER Did Before (VIDEO) | President Obama has done something that no other President has ever done on national television, and it s going to drive every Conservative in the country nuts. During an Alaska shoot with survivalist Bear Grylls to highlight climate change, the President painted his nails.In a gloriously un-macho moment, Bear Grylls offers the President some foraged nail paint, and suggests the President might wish to take advantage of the wonderful shade of fuchsia. On camera and with zero homophobic mockery, the President applies the paint to his nails (quite deftly I might add) and sits back and enjoys his handiwork.The footage is an outtake from President Obama s shoot with British survivalist Bear Grylls for a special edition of Running Wild with Bear Grylls. | 1real |
BREAKING: 20-YR OLD OBAMA VIDEO UNCOVERED: “I am saddened whites are still superior” [Video] | Obama: I am saddened whites are still superior .things could explode at any point. FULL UNSEEN VIDEO: https://t.co/2TsUiLEYQ5 pic.twitter.com/6RFhGYg3Pn Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 4, 2016FULL VIDEO: Go to 14:40 for comments on race: | 1real |
After Two Wars, Standing Rock is the First Time I Served the American People | I was in Iraq when President Bush announced the “surge” in January 2007. I was in Afghanistan when President Obama announced the “surge” in December 2009. But it wasn’t until I visited Standing Rock... | 1real |
Trump campaign aide met Russian officials in 2016: NY Times | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign met Russian government officials last year, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing testimony he gave this week to a U.S. congressional committee. In numerous media interviews in recent months, the adviser, Carter Page, has either denied meeting Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip to Moscow or said he met “mostly scholars,” the newspaper said. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing his insights after conversations with Russian government officials and others, the Times reported, citing a person familiar with the message. The newspaper said the email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony on Thursday to the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which is investigating efforts by Russia to tip the November 2016 election in Trump’s favor and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Russia says it did not interfere in the election and Trump has denied any collusion. Page played down the significance of the meetings in an interview with the Times on Friday. “I had a very brief hello to a couple of people. That was it,” he said. Page said one of the people he met was a “senior person,” but would not confirm the person’s identity. Special counsel Robert Mueller, who has impaneled a grand jury in his probe of the collusion allegations, charged Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and another aide, Rick Gates, with money laundering on Monday. It was announced the same day that another Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos, had pleaded guilty early in October to lying to the FBI. Page was questioned by the FBI earlier this year and has also appeared before the grand jury as part of the special counsel’s probe, the Times said. | 0fake |
FBI detects breaches against two state voter systems | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has found breaches in Illinois and Arizona’s voter registration databases and is urging states to increase computer security ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election, according to a U.S. official familiar with the probe. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Monday that investigators were also seeking evidence of whether other states may have been targeted. The FBI warning in an Aug. 18 flash alert from the agency’s Cyber Division did not identify the intruders or the two states targeted. Reuters obtained a copy of the document after Yahoo News first reported the story Monday. Accessing information in a voter database, much of which is publicly accessible, does not necessarily suggest an effort to manipulate the votes themselves. When registering, voters typically provide their names, home addresses, driver’s license or identification numbers, and party affiliations. But U.S. intelligence officials have become increasingly worried that hackers sponsored by Russia or other countries may attempt to disrupt the presidential election. Officials and cyber security experts say recent breaches at the Democratic National Committee and elsewhere in the Democratic Party were likely carried out by people within the Russian government. Kremlin officials have denied that. An FBI spokeswoman would not comment on the alerts but said the agency “routinely advises” on “various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations.” The intrusions come amid repeated unsubstantiated claims by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump that the U.S. election system is “rigged.” Trump has cited emails leaked from the DNC that indicated the party leadership favored Hillary Clinton over rival candidate Bernie Sanders as reason to cast doubt on the electoral process in general. David Kennedy, chief executive officer of information security consulting company TrustedSec, said the attacks referenced in the FBI alert appeared to be largely exploratory and not especially sophisticated. “It could be a precursor to a larger attack,” he added. Citing a state election board official, Yahoo News said the Illinois voter registration system was shut down for 10 days in late July after hackers downloaded personal data on up to 200,000 voters. State voter systems are often targeted by hackers, and 200,000 is a relatively small number compared to other recent incidents. An independent computer security researcher uncovered in December of last year a database on 191 million voters that was exposed on the open Internet due to an incorrect configuration. The Arizona attack was more limited and involved introducing malicious software into one state employee’s computer, said Matt Roberts, communications director for the Arizona secretary of state’s office. That office publicly reported a cyber incident in June after being contacted by the FBI, which led to it temporarily shutting down its election site to deal with the potential threat. Roberts said he was uncertain if the FBI advisory was in reference to that same June incident, during which investigators found no evidence of any data exfiltration. In that episode, the FBI told Arizona officials the hackers were believed to be Russian and described it as an “eight out of 10” on a threat severity scale, Roberts said. Arizona will hold Republican and Democratic primaries for congressional races on Tuesday. | 0fake |
BREAKING REPORT: HILLARY SUPPORTER, CEO Of Las Vegas MGM and Mandalay Bay Resort Asked Employees To Donate To CAIR Only 2 Months Ago, Wife Worked For Obama | On August 15, 2017, Jim Murren, CEO of MGM which owns Mandalay Bay Casino and Resort, came out with a bold statement of support for Hillary Clinton s presidential campaign: As a lifelong registered Republican, I ve crossed the aisle only a few times in elections past, and almost never at the presidential level. Each time, it was a gut-wrenching decision.But this year it s an easy choice. I m going to put my country ahead of my party by voting for Hillary Clinton and by making my first-ever public endorsement of a presidential candidate. Breaking from investigative reporter Laura Loomer*: EXCLUSIVE: In this internal memo I have obtained, Jim Murren, the CEO of MGM resorts which owns Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino (where Stephen Paddock committed his massacre) asked employees to donate to CAIR, a documented terrorist organization, two months ago.Murren declared that he d match all donations from his employees to CAIR, and radical left-wing anti -Trump groups like Southern Poverty Law Center and ADL Anti-Defamation League. His wife, Heather Murren also worked for the Obama administration on Obama s Commission for Enhancing National Cybersecurity in 2016.When this memo first came out from the MGM CEO to his employees, Wayne Allen Root wrote in the Townhall publication about his disgust for a CEO of a major company asking his employees to donate to these radical groups, many of which, are in direct conflict with conservative and Christian values.Why is the MGM CEO asking his employees to contribute to radical, left-wing organizations? Why did the killer choose to stay in the Mandalay Casino? Why is no one reporting about the fact that the wife of the MGM CEO worked for Obama on his Commission for Enhancing National Cybersecurity only one year ago?What about the fact that receipts that allegedly came from the Mandalay Casino Resort show that there were 2 GUESTS in the room with the shooter and that he actually checked in one day before the date of check-in that s being reported.Again, more from investigative journalist Laura Loomer*:BREAKING: Copies of receipts from the Las Vegas shooter s room service were posted by Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino room service employee Tony Hernandez Armenta. The receipts confirm my previous reporting that Stephen Paddock checked into the resort prior to Sept. 28. The receipts are dated Sept. 27, 2017, and indicate that there were 2 GUESTS inside the room at the time of service. My source who works at the Mandalay told me Paddock s reservation began on Sept. 25, all of which proves that Las Vegas law enforcement and FBI aren t providing accurate information to the public. All of a sudden, there s been a shift in the investigation. There seems to be a new focus on radicalization of the shooter.Las Vegas Sheriff Lombardo is now suggesting that the shooter was radicalized and that they are attempting to uncover the source of his radicalization:BREAKING: Sheriff Lombardo suggests shooter was "radicalized" & authorities attempting to uncover source. pic.twitter.com/HtoIxRhvvA Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 3, 2017*Laura Loomer is an independent journalist and conservative activist. She was formerly a reporter for Rebel Media until she resigned in September of 2016. Loomer can be found on Twitter by clicking HERE. | 1real |
Honduran opposition candidate rejects official election count | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Salvador Nasralla, the Honduran opposition candidate whose early lead against President Juan Orlando Hernandez in a presidential election has evaporated, on Wednesday said he rejected the vote count of the electoral tribunal. Earlier, both candidates vowed to respect the final result once every disputed vote had been scrutinized, issuing signed statements brokered by the Organization of American States. But Nasralla told a news conference a few hours later that the document had no validity and rejected the count. Nasralla initially held a five point lead against Hernandez until the electoral count suddenly stopped on Monday. When it restarted on Tuesday, the count began favoring Hernandez who edged ahead earlier on Wednesday before it stopped again. | 0fake |
Canada’s Foreign Minister: We Must Now Fill The Global Leadership Role U.S. Has Abandoned | Donald Trump has done so much damage that other countries are now scrambling to figure out their new role in the world. The U.S. is quickly losing its status as a superpower with Trump at the helm and now leaders from around the globe are figuring out just who will fill the void. On Tuesday, Canada s foreign minister said that his country must step up to help fill the global leadership role that the U.S. has abandoned under Trump.During a speech, Minister Chrystia Freeland said that while the United States has truly been the indispensable nation in years past and has helped foster peace and prosperity for both Canada and the U.S., things seem to be changing.Yet it would be na ve or hypocritical to claim before this House that all Americans today agree. Indeed, many of the voters in last year s presidential election cast their ballots, animated in part by a desire to show that the burden of world leadership. To say this is not controversial: it is simply that. Canada is grateful, and will always be grateful, to the U.S., Freeland continued. She added that Canada will continue to seek to persuade our friend that their continued international leadership is very much in their national interest as well as that of the rest of the free world. Yet we also recognize that the ultimately not our decision to make. It is a choice Americans must make for themselves.The fact that our friend and ally has come to question the very worth of its mantle of global leadership, puts into sharper focus the need for the rest of us to set our and we are in sovereign course. For Canada, that course must be the renewal, indeed the strengthening, of the postwar multilateral order.We will follow this path, with open hand and open heart extended to our American friend, seeking to make common cause had so often in the past.This is absolutely shameful. In less than six months Trump cost the U.S. not only its reputation but its role as a global leader as well. How much longer are we going to allow him to continue destroying our country?Stunning speech by Canada s foreign minister: America is giving up mantle of global leadership, and we must step in https://t.co/prTaNTv927 pic.twitter.com/1LxdRXjtC5 Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) June 6, 2017Featured image via Fiona Goodall/Getty Images | 1real |
LibertyNEWS Daily Electoral Projection Tracking Map Now Has Trump at 259, Clinton at 197 | Last week our 2016 electoral projection map had Trump at 235 electoral votes and Clinton at 230. Today’s update includes several state category changes that benefit Trump should they play out as projected on election day next Tuesday.
The following changes are reflected in the new projections. Utah moves from toss up to Trump New Hampshire moves from Clinton to toss up Virginia moves from Clinton to toss up Michigan moves from Clinton to toss up Ohio moves from toss up to Trump
UTAH
While long shot candidate Evan McMullin has proven to be a thorn in Trump’s side in Utah, all polls now indicate Trump will end up triumphant on election day. The media is hyping Utah in an attempt to cast a negative light on Trump’s overall standing with more conservative GOP voters, but there is no solid evidence McMullin will actually pull off a win.
We strongly believe Trump will ultimately win Utah and have moved this state into the Trump corner accordingly.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
New polling out of New Hampshire has Trump and Clinton tied, with the latest poll showing Trump at +3. There is no early voting in New Hampshire so we don’t have a sense of where things stand in terms of turnout.
With no early turnout data and tightening polls we’ve decided to move New Hampshire back into toss up territory.
VIRGINIA
Perhaps the most surprising move is Virginia. Of all the states we’re watching in the toss up column, Virginia is probably the toughest pick up for Trump. The big government vote in northern Virginia is a mountain not easily climbed for a Republican candidate.
Clinton has a lot of advantages in Virginia. There are wide spread reports of voter fraud in favor of Clinton, the northern Virginia blue vote will be a huge benefit and her running mate Tim Kaine has deep organization across the state.
That said, Clinton should be dominating in the polls and instead they’re tightening across Virginia in ways they shouldn’t all things considered. On October 19th Clinton lead in the average by nearly 10%. That lead has been cut to just 4.7%, nearly within the margin of error.
MICHIGAN
Our sources in Michigan are telling us Trump is gaining massive steam in the state. It’s all about turnout and according to FiveThirtyEight if the popular vote is within 2 points Donald Trump has a 40% chance of picking off Michigan.
On October 18th the Fox 2 Detroit poll had Clinton up by 13%. Two days ago that same poll had Clinton up by 3%, a lead that sits within the margin of error.
OHIO
In pretty much all polls for Ohio over the past several weeks Donald Trump has consistently held a 5% advantage. This plus the fact that there has not been a major poll released after the bombshell FBI news has us confident Ohio is now in Trump’s favor.
If our projection holds, Trump only needs 11 electoral votes for victory at the 270 mark. And as you can see below, there are a plethora of ways he can accomplish that. All of them, however, are very challenging.
That challenge exists for Clinton as well.
Note : Our projection is based on corrected sample weight for a broad variety of polling combined with early voting statistics. CURRENT PROJECTED ELECTORAL VOTE STANDINGS HILLARY CLINTON DONALD TRUMP 259 ELECTORAL VOTES
Note: Orange denotes states that cannot yet be projected. Hover over each state to reveal electoral vote counts. AL | 1real |
When Will It End? Police Clash with Pipeline Protesters | License DMCA
It's like we are back to the 1800s when the U.S. Army rampaged against Native American tribes across the American West. The militarized police and the use of the National Guard this week in responding to the Standing Rock Sioux Native American challenge in North Dakota to big oil and its dangerous pipelines reminds one of Custer's Last Stand against Sitting Bull.
In fact, the portrait of Sitting Bull is on one of the most popular t-shirts available to supporters of the "water protectors," as those are known who protest yet one more oil pipeline that crosses sensitive watershed areas and major rivers of the United States.
Four days last week, I joined hundreds of Native Americans and social justice campaigners from around the United States and around the world, in challenging the Dakota Access Pipe Line (DAPL), the 1,172-mile, $3.7 billion dollar scar across the face of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois.
Last week, I photographed the area along Highway 6 south of Bismarck where the Energy Transfer Partnership contractors were busy digging the trench for the "Black Snake" as the pipeline is called. License DMCA - Advertisement -
I also counted 24 police cars returning to Bismarck at shift change around 3 p.m., a huge number of state law enforcement personnel and vehicles dedicated to protection of corporate business, instead of the rights of citizens.
Huge machines were chewing up the earth near water sources for all of North Dakota. The pipeline was rerouted from near Bismarck so if the pipeline breaks it would not endanger the water supply of the capital city of the state. But it was relocated to where it will cross the Missouri River and will jeopardize the water supply of the Native Americans and all Americans living in southern North Dakota and downstream of the Missouri River. Security forces protecting the Dakota Access pipeline construction spray protesters with pepper spray. License DMCA - Advertisement -
On Thursday, the digging took a more confrontational turn. The huge digging equipment arrived to cut across State Highway 1806 at a spot where water protectors had set up a front-line camp several months ago, one mile north of the main encampment of over 1,000 people. As the equipment arrived, the "water protectors" blocked the highway.
In a dangerous incident, an armed private security guard of DAPL came onto the camp and was chased off into the water abutting the camp by water protectors. After a lengthy standoff, tribal agency police arrived and arrested the security guard. Water protectors set his security vehicle on fire.
On Friday more than 100 local and state police and North Dakota National Guard arrested over 140 people who blocked the highway attempting to stop the destruction of the land. Police in riot gear with automatic rifles lined up across a highway, with multiple MRAPs (mine-resistant ambush protected military vehicles), a sound cannon that can immobilize persons nearby, Humvees driven by National Guardsmen, an armored police truck and a bulldozer.
Police used mace, pepper spray, tear gas and flash-bang grenades and bean-bag rounds against Native Americans who lined up on the highway. Police reportedly shot rubber bullets at their horses and wounded one rider and his horse.
As this police mayhem was unfolding, a small herd of buffalo stampeded across a nearby field, a strong symbolic signal to the water protectors who erupted in cheers and shouts, leaving law enforcement officials wondering what was happening. The security forces protecting the Dakota Access pipeline against protesters are heavily militarized. | 1real |
Ted Cruz Tells Megyn Kelly He Would Force Rape Victims To Carry Rapist’s Baby (VIDEO) | Donald Trump has suggested that women should face some sort of punishment for having an abortion. Ted Cruz just admitted that he wants to punish women for being raped.During an interview with Fox host Megyn Kelly, Cruz made it clear that he believes rape victims should be barred from terminating any pregnancy that results from the crime.Women think you may be too far right on social issues, Kelly told Cruz while pointing out that the GOP presidential wannabe s stance on abortion rights is repelling female voters away from a Republican Party that needs votes from women if it hopes to survive in November.But Ted Cruz refused to budge from his extremist views and openly stated that he believes rape victims should be forced to carry pregnancies that result from rape to term. Rape is a horrific crime against the humanity of a person. But at the same time, as horrible as the crime is, I don t believe it s the child s fault. We want to do every thing we can do to prevent the crime on the front end and to punish the criminal. But I don t believe it makes sense to blame the child. Kelly fired back by informing Cruz that women think he would be forcing the mother to go through unspeakable trauma to carry her rapist s baby for nine months. On that point, Kelly is correct. Forcing a woman to endure nine grueling months of a pregnancy she did not want only helps the rapist torture his victim more, it rewards the rapist with a child. And in far too many states, a rapist can then sue for parental rights and would be able to harass the victim for the next 18 years of the child s life.Cruz, however, avoided replying to Kelly like the coward he is and dubiously claimed that the decision would be left to the states if Roe v. Wade were to ever be overturned. Here it would be a question for Wisconsin, what should the laws be governing abortion. If Roe v. Wade was not the law, it would be up to the people of Wisconsin and the people of Wisconsin might decide to allow some exceptions or not allow some exceptions because everyone agrees that you always want to protect the life of the mother. Here s the video:Ted Cruz is literally pretending that he would allow each state to have their own abortion laws. In December, Cruz stated his intention to ban abortion nationwide despite what the Supreme Court has ruled.Furthermore, Cruz has also voiced support for a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks that provided zero exceptions for rape victims. He also supported the Life at Conception Act, which would ban all abortion for any reason and would even outlaw some forms of contraception.In short, Cruz is lying through his teeth when he claims that the states will be able to make their own abortion laws. As president, Cruz would absolutely sign a total ban on abortion if Republicans manage to hold onto the Senate and House after the election in November. In fact, it would probably be one of the first things he does. And that means women absolutely should not trust Ted Cruz. Featured image via screencapture | 1real |
FLASHBACK To Time When ABC News’ #LyinBrianRoss Tried To Tie Aurora, CO Mass Shooter To Tea Party [VIDEO] | As the name of the suspect, identified as 24-year-old James Holmes, first emerged Friday morning, Ross reported on ABC News that he d found a web page for a Jim Holmes on a Colorado Tea Party site.Here a transcript of the discussion on live television between George Stephanopoulos and ABC News lyin Brian Ross: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to go to Brian Ross here, because, Brian, you ve been looking- investigating the background of Jim Holmes here. You ve found something that might be significant.BRIAN ROSS: There is a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado page on the Colorado Tea Party site as well. Talking about him joining the Tea Party last year. Now, we don t know if this the same Jim Holmes. But it s Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colorado.STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay, we ll keep looking at that. Brian Ross, thanks very much.Watch:After Lyin Brian Ross unsubstantiated and completely bogus report about the identity of a man who just shot and killed several people, that could have put the life of tea party member Jim Holmes in danger, Ross simply apologized.Fox News That man is not the same Jim Holmes. The Colorado Tea Party Patriots, whose website Ross was looking at, put out a statement criticizing Ross for even floating the possibility noting the Jim Holmes with the Tea Party group is 52 years old and not the same person. The attempts of some media organizations to characterize the shooter as a Tea Party member without having made any effort to contact our organization are shameless and reprehensible, the group said in a statement.Ross clarified on air Friday, as ABC News issued a formal apology. An earlier ABC News broadcast report suggested that a Jim Holmes of a Colorado Tea Party organization might be the suspect, but that report was incorrect. ABC News and Brian Ross apologize for the mistake, and for disseminating that information before it was properly vetted, the statement said.On air later in the morning, Ross also said: An earlier report that I had was incorrect that he was connected with the Tea Party. In fact, that s a different Jim Holmes. He was not connected to the Tea Party and what we do know about him is he is a 24-year-old white male who went to Colorado for a Ph.D.Here s Lyin Brian Ross apology after he got caught reporting fake news about the Michael Flynn s meeting with the Russian Ambassador while President Trump was a candidate . | 1real |
PAMELA GELLAR’S FREE SPEECH EVENT HELPS ROOT OUT ANOTHER “off-the-charts dangerous” AMERICAN MUSLIM TERRORIST WITH BIG PLANS… | Like moths to a lamp bam!The terror suspect who allegedly helped orchestrate the shootout at an anti-Islam event in Texas had aspirations to join Islamic State and attack the Super Bowl, authorities say.Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, 43, was described as off-the-charts dangerous by officials as they outlined the evidence against him. He was arrested last week on charges related to the shootout at a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest, which led to the deaths of two roommates from Phoenix, Arizona.An indictment filed in federal court in Phoenix says Kareem hosted the gunmen in his home from January and also provided the guns they used in the May 3 shooting in Garland.At a hearing in federal court, FBI special agent Dina McCarthy described how a witness and a confidential informant reportedly learned about Kareem s interest in the Islamic State, including watching the terror group s videos with Texas shooters Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi.McCarthy said a 2012 investigation into Kareem determined he had a terrorism training document on his computer.She claimed he wanted to attack the Super Bowl when it was in Arizona this year but she provided no specifics about how serious he was.The magistrate denied bail for Kareem, who is charged with conspiracy, making false statements and interstate transportation of firearms with intent to commit a felony. This is an individual who is apt to incite violence, prosecutor Kristen Brook said. This defendant, based on all these facts, is dangerous he is off-the-charts dangerous. Defense lawyer Daniel Maynard called it a trumped-up case based largely on an unreliable confidential informant charged with kidnapping and sex trafficking. This is your typical jailhouse snitch, Maynard said adding that there was no proof Kareem purchased any of the guns used in the Texas shooting.Via: UK Daily Mail | 1real |
Ted Cruz: If Premiums Keep Rising After Obamacare Repeal, People Will ’Tar and Feather Us in the Streets’ - Breitbart | Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Sen. Ted Cruz ( ) said if the Republicans and President Donald Trump repeal and replace Obamacare and premiums continue to rise “people will be ready to tar and feather us in the streets. ” Cruz said,”My biggest concern with the House bill is it doesn’t lower premiums. ” He added, “If Republicans hold a big press conference and pat ourselves on the back that we have repealed Obamacare, and everyone’s premiums keep going up, people will be ready to tar and feather us in the streets and quite rightly. ” ( RCP Video) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN | 0fake |
OUCH! Things Take Ugly Turn For MATT LAUER When He Tries To Get George W. Bush To Blame Trump For Division: “When I was President, you mattered a lot more” [VIDEO] | Matt Lauer, of the failing Today Show had an exclusive interview with the President. George W. Bush refused to criticize Barack Obama s presidency, but the media is hoping that after his brother Jeb took a brutal beating in the primary s that his position on not trashing a sitting president may have changed. True to form, the pathetic Matt Lauer attempts to blame the division in our nation, that will surely be Barack Obama s legacy, on President Donald Trump. Lauer starts the interview out in a whiny voice, as he attempts to get the former President Bush to take the media s side against Trump: But there s enormous division in the country right now, and although the president says he hopes to unify the country, have you in the first month seen him do or say anything that in your opinion, would be an attempt to heal the wounds of the election? Things took an unexpected turn when instead of agreeing with Lauer, George W. Bush reminds him of the role the press has played in helping Obama to divide our nation, and more specifically, how irrelevant Matt Lauer has become. Ouch!Watch:https://youtu.be/O4X-8REYtLcHere s the entire interview: | 1real |
The Choose-Your-Own-News Adventure - The New York Times | AUSTIN, Tex. — A fascinating story emerged about Netflix last week. The Daily Mail reported that the streaming television service was developing new interactive technology allowing viewers to direct the plots of certain television shows, style. The company later told me that the experiment was focused on children’s programming, more as a developmental learning tool than as some new twist on the modern media sphere’s rush to give you exactly what you want when you want it. No matter how far the experiment goes, Netflix is again in step with the national zeitgeist. After all, there are algorithms for streaming music services like Spotify, for Facebook’s news feed and for Netflix’s own program menu, working to deliver just what you like while filtering out whatever might turn you off and send you away — the sorts of honey traps that are all the talk at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival going on here through this week. So why not extend the idea to the plots of your favorite shows? The Mail even went so far as to envision viewers of the British historical drama “The Crown” making it so that Princess Margaret gets to marry her sister’s equerry, Peter Townsend. Of course, as Princess Margaret knew all too painfully, history saw no such union. But that’s no big deal anymore — at least if you consider the way people are being primed to shape the arc of the narratives on their highly personalized electronic screens to suit their own tastes, even if it means banishing inconvenient facts. As Dan Wagner, the Obama campaign data wiz and current Civis Analytics chief executive, put it when I bumped into him here during the weekend, “You used to be a consumer of reality, and now you’re a designer of reality. ” Understanding how that is playing out more broadly will help explain why you and your aunt’s new boyfriend can see the same events unfold in Washington and have utterly different ideas about what just happened. Allow me to direct you to the news media misadventure of the past week, which I’ll call “POTUS45, Episode 6: The Presidential Wiretap That (A) Was, (B) Wasn’t, (C) Was Because He’s a Russian Agent and Oh, Sister, Is He in Trouble. ” It started with President Trump’s Twitter posts accusing former President Barack Obama of having wiretapped his phones at Trump Tower. Game on. If you were inclined to believe that Mr. Obama did what Mr. Trump said he did — indeed, if you wanted to believe it — you probably would have tuned into “Fox Friends” that Sunday morning for Adventure A. There, you would have seen the radio host Mark Levin, whose show was credited with helping to spur Mr. Trump’s accusations, laying out the case for Mr. Trump, declaring, “This is about the Obama administration’s spying. ” The proof, you would have heard him say, was already out there in the mainstream media — what with a report on the website Heat Street saying that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had secured a warrant to investigate ties between people in Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia, and articles in The New York Times, in The Washington Post and elsewhere about intelligence linking people in Mr. Trump’s campaign to Russia, some of it from wiretaps. “These are police state tactics!” Mr. Levin would tell you. The next day, perhaps your Twitter or Facebook feed turned up a post from the Gateway Pundit — recently granted a White House press credential — speculating that maybe, just maybe, the F. B. I. director “Let Hillary Off the Hook Because She Knew About F. B. I. Wiretapping. ” As the week unspooled, you would have seen commentary on why Mr. Trump’s charge was so believable (Breitbart) and, shockingly, how it’s even possible that the C. I. A. hacked Clinton campaign email but made it look as if Russia had done it (Bill Mitchell, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity). Sure, you would have picked up static from other sources that made some of this seem ridiculous. But that stuff is for the followers of Adventure B, relying on journalism from seasoned reporters with deep contacts and established (and, yes, sometimes imperfect) protocols for — all of which the Adventure A people view with deep suspicion that the president is only too happy to stir. If you were among the Adventure B folk, maybe you saw James Clapper Jr. the former national security director, tell Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” that Sunday that the F. B. I. had not secured a FISA warrant to spy on Mr. Trump’s aides. You probably would have seen the news, first reported by The Times, that the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, had asked the Justice Department to deny Mr. Trump’s charge (to no avail) and the viral video of George Stephanopoulos of ABC News telling a presidential aide, “That’s false,” as she tried to reprise the Adventure A argument that mainstream news reports backed Mr. Trump’s wiretap accusation. You would have seen PolitiFact’s rebuttal of the same argument — and, finally, a week later, reports about how evidence for Mr. Trump’s charge still had yet to surface. Or, lastly, were you an Adventure C kind of person? If so, you couldn’t get enough about how Mr. Trump’s wiretap allegation and the Russian connections could lead to his impeachment (MSNBC, The Independent, Maxine Waters) and your Facebook feed probably included the learnprogress. org headline “The F. B. I. Is Now Officially CRIMINALLY Investigating Donald J. Trump. ” (Nothing in the posting it links to shows evidence for any such thing.) As Mr. Stephanopoulos told me when we spoke by phone over the weekend, the trend may have been heading this way for a while — you don’t need an algorithmic feed to turn on Fox News or to catch Rush Limbaugh. But in the era of the curated digital news stream, the phenomenon has “ended up in a whole new place,” Mr. Stephanopoulos said. It’s easy to overdo it, he noted, given that no specially tailored plotline can fully tune out the contradicting details of another one. “Filters do have to contend with each other in some way, too,” he said. Really, arguments between adherents of the different adventure plots are the stuff of cable news programming, with each narrative vying for supremacy in debates that too often become arguments over established facts that should be indisputable. Because, after all, one of the plots we’re talking about here is of the sort that democracy depends on — that would be Adventure B, the one based on established facts that exist in the real world — and the others are of the sort that threatens to undermine any shared sense of truth while driving us into our corners. At South by Southwest here, a lot of words have been spilled on what to do about it, and just how urgently this multidimensional view of reality needs to be addressed — and how to do so. At a Mediapost event on the “ era” I participated in on Saturday, the editor of PolitiFact, Angie Drobnic Holan, said the truth would always come out, eventually. “At some point, evidence and facts will win out over an idea that has no substance,” she said. Our Mediapost conversation wandered into whether the big platforms could inject individual information streams with more items that might run counter to a person’s baseless beliefs. Intriguing. But there’s not a ton of economic incentive for the platforms to give people what they don’t want. Late Sunday, I checked out a exhibit presented at the Austin Motel by the digital creative collective the Future of StoryTelling. You could throw on the goggles, become a bird and fly around. If virtual reality can allow a human to become a bird, why couldn’t it allow you to live more fully in your own political reality — don the goggles and go live full time in the adventure of your choosing: A, B or C. Just watch out for that wall you’re about to walk into IRL (in real life). Or, hey, don’t — knock yourself out. | 0fake |
Spain's Supreme Court begins rebellion proceedings against Catalan lawmakers | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s Supreme court has begun processing rebellion charges raised against Catalonia s parliament speaker Carme Forcadell as well as other senior lawmakers from the region, a court spokesman said on Tuesday. Spain s state prosecutor on Monday called for rebellion and sedition charges to be brought against Catalan leaders over their push to separate from Spain. | 0fake |
Paul Ryan: ’Health Care Is Not Dead’ - Breitbart | The GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare is still moving forward, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan confirmed in London Wednesday. [Ryan answered questions at the Policy Exchange think tank in London Wednesday. When asked about plans to move forward with a Republican Health care plan, the Speaker was unequivocal. “Health care is not dead, we’re still working on it,” he said. “We have to step in front of this crisis,” Ryan said about the future of president Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Healthcare Act, commonly called “Obamacare. ” Ryan characterized the current system as “collapsing under its own weight” and pointed to numerous states and counties in which only a single insurance company is still offering coverage. “We’re talking about a system in dire need of reform,” he cautioned. The plan Ryan himself wholeheartedly pushed to replace Obamacare, the “American Health Care Act (AHCA),” had to be withdrawn before it reached a vote due to insufficient support on the House floor and even less favorable public polling. In the intervening weeks, however, there have been indications the different factions within the House Republican majority, including the Freedom Caucus so instrumental in defeating the AHCA, have been readying a second attempt at repeal and replace. Speaker Ryan seemed to confirm that such a regrouping is in the works. “We’re in the midst of negotiating sorta finishing touches,” he said of an unannounced plan. “It’s difficult to do. We’re very close. It’s basically ‘make good on the promises that were made. ’” While details were skant, Ryan offered up what he considered the goals of the next Republican effort to make good on one of the party’s standing campaign issues. “We want to have a system in America where everyone has affordable access to good health insurance … including people with conditions. That is not what the current law does and it’s just gonna take us a little time to make good on that,” Ryan said. Ryan also explained his reasoning for keeping the order of his legislative priorities unchanged: finishing health care first before moving on to tax reform. “It makes it much easier for us to do tax reform if we first do health care reform,” Ryan said. According to him, repealing Obamacare will necessarily repeal nearly $1 trillion in taxes. “The way that works in our numbers is ten points of corporate tax rate reduction. ” | 0fake |
THE STATE OF OUR NATION Is Perfectly Illustrated In These 12 Hysterical Halloween Memes | The 12 funniest halloween memes in no particular order (although #12 is our personal favorite).#1#2#3#4#5#6#7#8#9#10#11#12 | 1real |
Pentagon assesses readiness for transgender hires: memo | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Defense is assessing its ability to recruit transgender people as soon as 1 July, according to a memo signed by a top Pentagon official and seen by Reuters. The Pentagon ended its ban on openly transgender people serving in the U.S. military last year under Defense Secretary Ash Carter. That repeal lowered one of the last barriers on who could serve in the military and came after a 2011 decision to end the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay and lesbian people. A Pentagon spokesperson verified the contents of the memo, but declined further comment on the document. The memo instructed each military branch to examine their “readiness to begin assessing transgender applicants into military service on July 1, 2017.” In the memo, dated 8 May, Defense Secretary Robert Work instructed chiefs of each military branch and service secretaries to submit their reports by 31 May. | 0fake |
Thousands of Tunisians protest against Trump's Jerusalem decision | TUNIS (Reuters) - Thousands of Tunisians protested in several cities on Thursday against U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital and decision to move the U.S. Embassy there, residents said. Labor unions and other groups have called for even bigger protests in the capital Tunis and other cities in the North African country after Friday prayers. Thursday s demonstrations went peacefully with several hundreds alone gathering in central Tunis, holding up Palestinian flags and banners, residents said. Protesters burned a U.S. flag and others stepped on images of Israeli flags. Tunisia s President Beji Caid Essebsi sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemning the U.S. decision, saying it undermined Palestinian rights, officials said. | 0fake |
Tension grips Nigerian city as separatist leader goes missing | UMUAHIA, Nigeria (Reuters) - A secessionist leader seeking independence from Nigeria has been missing since an alleged military raid more than two weeks ago left his house in the city of Umuahia riddled with bullet holes, its windows smashed and doors hanging off hinges. The disappearance of Nnamdi Kanu, after the raid the army says did not happen, threatens to ignite separatist unrest capable of destabilizing southeastern Nigeria, a region where a million people died in a 1967-70 civil war over the short-lived Republic of Biafra. Kingsley Kanu, 48, said he was with his older brother Nnamdi, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader, at their family home on the evening of Sept. 14 when soldiers stormed in. They were shooting everything they saw, he said, pointing to bullet holes in walls and windows. They came here just to kill everybody, he said, adding that around 20 IPOB members were shot dead but most of the bodies were taken by soldiers. Reuters witnesses - a reporter and TV cameraman - on Sept. 27 saw six corpses with bullet wounds in a morgue, who IPOB said were among their members. Two resembled men in photographs held by weeping relatives who told Reuters their brothers were killed in the raid, though nobody could verify the identities of the four others. The military did not raid Nnamdi Kanu s residence, a military spokesman told reporters in the capital, Abuja. Nnamdi Kanu is not in the custody of the military. The allegation and denial are the biggest flashpoint of a military deployment in the southeast that began in September. Civil society groups and analysts say the military presence, last month s designation of IPOB as a terrorist organization , and its leader s disappearance could prompt the separatists to abandon their policy of non-violence. President Muhammadu Buhari, a Muslim northerner, made a crackdown on secessionists the focus of his first speech in August after returning from three months of medical leave in Britain. He then held talks with armed forces chiefs who days later launched Operation Python Dance, which the military said was intended to reduce violent crime and secessionist agitations . Soldiers with rifles are present across Umuahia, capital of Abia state, in armored vans and at checkpoints where motorists are routinely questioned. Buhari is already contending with Boko Haram s jihadist insurgency in the northeast and seeking to maintain a ceasefire with militants in the southern oil-producing Niger Delta. But some say the former military ruler risks exacerbating the situation, just as militant attacks in the Niger Delta surged last year after troops were deployed. HEAVY-HANDED? The government s heavy-handed approach will only shore up local support for a radical group that previously struggled to broaden its base, said Malte Liewerscheidt of global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. Ryan Cummings, director of Africa-focused risk management company Signal Risk, said the Igbo ethnic group that dominates the region, and has long spoken of being marginalized, felt targeted. The government has allowed insecurity to burgeon in other areas of Nigeria without similar deployments, he said, citing attacks by Fulani herdsmen that have killed hundreds of people in central Nigeria over the last few years. Tension followed the arrival of troops in the southeast. Abia s governor imposed a curfew in the city of Aba last month. Several days of tension between IPOB members and troops led to claims by the group that Kanu s house had been besieged by soldiers, which the military denied. Videos circulating on social media including footage purportedly showing troops in Abia using sticks to flog men stripped to the waist, which the army said it was investigating, have heightened anger. The presence of the army scared our people. People spoke about what happened during the Biafran war, said Onyebuchi Ememanka, a special adviser to the state s governor who is a member of the opposition People s Democratic Party (PDP). There were no serious security challenges that would justify the deployment of troops, said Ememanka. He said he never saw IPOB s members carrying weapons, though he added that a uniformed national guard and secret service had held parades in the last few weeks, which he called a new dimension . Red, black and green paint - the Biafran flag s colors - daubed on walls and tree trunks across Umuahia follow calls for a referendum on independence. Kanu s release on bail in April, after being held for nearly two years on charges of criminal conspiracy and treasonable offences, brought attention back to the issue. However, talk of secession among people on the streets of Umuahia mostly hinged on whether or not they had the right to make a democratic choice about their future rather than aligning with IPOB s belief in a need for a separate state. Opinions tend to be divided along generation lines, with younger people born long after the war expressing an interest in a referendum while older people who remember the war or grew up hearing stories about the conflict are often wary of even discussing the subject. However, a pronouncement earlier this year by activists in the northern state of Kaduna that Igbos, who are mainly Christian, should be evicted stirred ethnic tensions. The dispute acted as a lightning rod for frustrations against Buhari, who fought in the civil war on the government side as a young soldier. A lack of development in the southeast for decades has cemented a belief among Igbos that they have been marginalized. Michael Ogbizi, Abia state police commissioner, said 74 IPOB members had been arrested since Sept. 12 and charged with offences including murder and arson. Many charges related to the burning down of a police station in mid-September in Aba where nine people died. Ogbizi said police had no records of IPOB members being killed. An IPOB spokesman denied the group was involved in the fire. Amid differing opinions about the group s past conduct, Kanu s disappearance has created uncertainty about its future. If they [the army] have killed him, let them give us the corpse, said the IPOB leader s brother, adding that his missing 82-year-old father and 67-year-old mother should be released if they are being held. Liewerscheidt said if Kanu were to die at the hands of the authorities parallels could be drawn with the origins of the Boko Haram insurgency that began after the death of Mohammed Yusuf, the Islamist militant group s founder, in police custody. This would likely transform IPOB into precisely the terrorist organization the military claims it already is, he said. | 0fake |
Factbox: Trump on Twitter (Sept 20) - Graham-Cassidy bill, Luther Strange | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Big meetings today at the United Nations. So many interesting leaders. America First will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! [0614 EDT] - After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes. [1140 EDT] - Thank you @foxandfriends - great show! [1200 EDT] - Rand Paul is a friend of mine but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing healthcare. Graham-Cassidy Bill is GREAT! Ends Ocare! [1309 EDT] - I hope Republican Senators will vote for Graham-Cassidy and fulfill their promise to Repeal & Replace ObamaCare. Money direct to States! [1316 EDT] - Looking forward to Friday night in the Great State of Alabama. I am supporting “Big” Luther Strange because he was so loyal & helpful to me! [1329 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 0fake |
Latino Celebrities Release An Open Letter Explaining How Screwed The Republican Party Is | On Thursday, over 20 Latino celebrities including Benjamin Bratt, America Ferrera, George Lopez, Aubrey Plaza, Zoe Saldana and Carlos Santana released an open letter through the People for the American Way. The letter was addressed to the Latino community concerning the Republican candidates running for Racist-in-Chief and it explained, very simply, that the Republican Party has committed electoral suicide:The candidates cannot come back from these hardline stances. Trump is certainly an outlier for his racist remarks. But the rest of the Republican presidential candidates went off the deep end with him.Our communities have the power to decide who wins in the 2016 election. We hope that power is used to vote for candidates who support our community, share our values, and will fight for working families. Neither Trump nor any of his fellow Republican candidates meet that standard.Even if the eventual Republican nominee backtracks on his or her anti-immigrant sentiments, we must not forget that we ve now seen that in the face of bigotry, the Republican candidates have chosen to turn their backs on our community. The current slate of GOP candidates has proven to us that they ve joined and embraced the party of Trump.This is exactly why I ve been so excited about Trump s campaign. In previous elections, the liberal media helped Republicans maintain the fiction that they weren t xenophobic bigots. But with the coming of Trump, that s all over. He s been so open about his loathing for Latinos that the other candidates have been forced to abandon their coded language in order to compete for the attention of their breathtakingly racist base.This, in turn, has made it perfectly clear to the Latino community that the Republican Party is not interested in them in the slightest but rather only in pandering to the anti-immigrant base of the Republican Party that idolizes Donald Trump. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get and it MUST go on because racism and hate is all Republicans have left anymore. If Republicans try to appeal to Latino voters in any way at all, their base will instantly revolt. They are caught in a trap of their own making and it is truly a glorious thing to behold.In an individual statement, America Ferrera said: It s critical that all Americans, and especially American Latinos, stand up to the misrepresentation of our communities coming from Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and any other candidate running on a platform of xenophobia and fear-mongering. The way to do that is to show up on Election Day. And that means young Latinos have to register and vote. We have the numbers and potential to make a difference. This, of course, is the GOP s worst nightmare come true. Latinos voting en masse would take power away from the poor, oppressed white people of America.Carlos Santana sent a more hopeful message to Republicans that will 100% fall on deaf ears: To Donald Trump and the Republican candidates Spirit requires integration and total acceptance of everyone on this blessed planet. I invite you to utilize your power of wealth, to restore, amend and heal your relationship with all your sisters and brothers! It s never too late to graduate from the university of fear! I believe in you! Your light can make a difference on our great nation-when the power of love replaces the love for power. Divinity is who you really are LIGHT. Peace to you, your families and all your immigrant employees. I ve said this many times before and I ll keep saying it: There s a reason the black community votes 90%+ Democratic and it s not because Democrats have made the black community a top priority. They haven t and it s an uphill battle to get Democrats to do more for their black voters. Even knowing that, the black community votes Democratic because they know, as sure as the sun will rise, that the Republican Party hates them with every fiber of their beings. Republicans are not indifferent like Democrats, they are actively hostile and work to make things worse for the black community whenever and wherever possible.Now the Latino community is learning the same lesson. Republicans are no longer content to mostly ignore the Latino community, they are going out of their way to demonize it and are openly planning to hurt Latino families to appease their rabidly racist base.Republicans have awoken the sleeping giant and they re going to pay dearly for it in the very near future. Featured image from hdstockphoto | 1real |
UK's Johnson makes fuller apology for remarks on jailed aid worker in Iran | LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson issued a second, fuller apology on Monday for remarks about an Iranian-British aid worker jailed in Iran that critics said might have prompted Iran to extend her prison sentence. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was sentenced to five years after being convicted by an Iranian court of plotting to overthrow the clerical establishment. She denies the charges. Johnson told a parliamentary committee on Nov. 1 that she had been teaching people journalism before her arrest in April 2016, contradicting her and her employer, who said she had been on holiday visiting her family. It was my mistake. I should have been clearer. I apologize for the distress and anguish that has been caused to Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her family, Johnson told lawmakers on Monday. Our priority now is to do everything we can to get her out of Iran on humanitarian grounds. On Nov. 7 Johnson said in the course of an exchange with an opposition MP in parliament that I am sorry if any words of mine have been so taken out of context and so misconstrued as to cause any kind of anxiety for the family. Opposition British lawmakers had said the remarks could land the aid worker a longer term in jail. Johnson, whose job has come under pressure over the case, said he would meet Zaghari-Ratcliffe s husband this week, adding that the issue was casting a shadow over relations with Iran. I shall travel to Iran myself later this year to review the full state of our bilateral relations and to drive home the strength of feeling in this House and in the country at large, Johnson said. Earlier on Monday, the government said it was considering granting diplomatic protection to Zaghari-Ratcliffe as part of an effort to secure her release from jail. It is unclear how such protection could be offered retrospectively to a dual Iranian-British citizen, or whether such a move could help to secure her release, but a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said it was one option being considered. The prime minister has been involved with this case from the outset, she s raised it with the Iranian president on at least two occasions, the entire government is working towards securing her release as quickly as possible, he said. A legal opinion prepared for the human rights charity Redress on Zaghari-Ratcliffe s case said the British government could grant her diplomatic protection as she is predominantly a British citizen who has been denied a fair trial. It is unclear how Tehran would view such a step, which would explicitly make Zaghari-Ratcliffe s fate an issue in state-to-state relations rather than a purely consular case. Zaghari-Ratcliffe s fate become a major political issue in Britain after Johnson made remarks on Nov. 1 that appeared to cast doubt on statements from her employer. The Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News, said she had been on holiday and had not been teaching journalism in Iran. Iranian state television said Johnson s comments showed Zaghari-Ratcliffe s guilt and that she was involved in spying. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, said the case had become a bargaining chip for Iran in its relations with Britain, and that it would not be helpful for Johnson to resign. He has asked to come with Johnson on a trip to Tehran planned for later this year and called for her to be given diplomatic protection. Nazanin is being held because she is British and is being used as a bargaining chip against the UK, now justified by your words, he said in an article in the Evening Standard newspaper. Nazanin is no longer simply a consular case as she has been endangered in a deeper way, he wrote. He added the uncertainty had affected his wife s health and she had gone to hospital for tests after finding lumps on her breasts, which the specialist thought were benign and stress-related. British ministers have rallied round Johnson but one of his allies, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, was accused of muddying the waters in a television interview on Sunday when he said he did not know what Zaghari-Ratcliffe was doing in Iran. | 0fake |
Donald Trump Tells N.R.A. Hillary Clinton Wants to Let Violent Criminals Go Free - The New York Times | LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Donald J. Trump accused Hillary Clinton on Friday of wanting to let violent criminals out of prison and “disarm” citizens in unsafe neighborhoods, and warned that women, in particular, would be at greater risk if she were elected president. Accepting the endorsement of the National Rifle Association at its annual convention here, Mr. Trump — who has not always been the staunchest opponent of stricter gun controls — said the November election would be a referendum on the Second Amendment. He claimed, hyperbolically, that Mrs. Clinton, his likely Democratic opponent, “wants to take away your guns. ” “Crooked Hillary Clinton is the most Amendment candidate ever to run for office,” he said. Mrs. Clinton has called for tightened restrictions on guns, but not for abolishing the right to own them. Mr. Trump, whose record of sexist remarks, among other things, has left him at a potentially crippling disadvantage among female voters, polls show, appealed directly to women in his speech, imbuing his defense of gun rights with an undercurrent of fear. “In trying to overturn the Second Amendment, Hillary Clinton is telling everyone — and every woman living in a dangerous community — that she doesn’t have the right to defend herself,” Mr. Trump said. “So you have a woman living in a community, a rough community, a bad community — sorry, you can’t defend yourself. ” If Mr. Trump’s comments seemed reminiscent of an era when crime rates were far higher — the Willie Horton ads attacking Michael S. Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, in the 1988 presidential race came to mind — they also appeared somewhat at odds with the broad bipartisan consensus on the need to reduce incarceration rates and prison populations: Mr. Trump sought to frighten voters about the idea of criminals being released from prison. He said Mrs. Clinton’s agenda was “to release the violent criminals from jail,” freeing them to roam the streets and put “innocent Americans at risk. ” He even tried out a new epithet for Mrs. Clinton: “heartless Hillary. ” Calling Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “heartless hypocrites,” he dared them to “let their bodyguards immediately disarm,” an apparent reference to their Secret Service protection. “Let’s see how good they do,” Mr. Trump said. “Let’s see how they feel walking around without their guns and their bodyguards. In the meantime, nobody else can have the guns, right?” Mr. Trump’s efforts to shore up his support among the N. R. A. ’s more than five million members could help him in the Rust Belt states that he would need to carry to win the White House. But Mrs. Clinton must strike a more delicate balance on the issue: In the Democratic primaries against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has a mixed record on gun control, she has taken an aggressive tack against firearm manufacturers and sellers. In a general election contest with Mr. Trump, however, Mrs. Clinton would vie with him for the loyalties of white voters in a number of battleground states where support for gun rights runs deep. Indeed, in recent weeks, as she campaigned before largely white, audiences in Appalachian and Great Lakes states, she has gun control and focused more on job creation and economic aid for financially struggling communities. But on Saturday, Mrs. Clinton will speak at a dinner of the Trayvon Martin Foundation’s “Circle of Mothers” in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. a group offering support to women who have lost a child to gun violence. And she is expected to press the issue to win over voters in Los Angeles, Oakland and other California cities before that state’s primary on June 7. Maya Harris, a senior policy adviser to Mrs. Clinton, dismissed Mr. Trump’s attacks on Friday, saying he was “peddling falsehoods. ” “Along with the vast majority of Americans, Hillary Clinton believes there are steps we can take at the federal level to keep guns out of the hands of criminals while respecting the Second Amendment,” Ms. Harris said. Since announcing his presidential bid, Mr. Trump — who himself has a concealed carry permit and whose two oldest sons are avid hunters — has fashioned himself a fierce advocate of gun rights. He has released a policy paper on the Second Amendment, has called for making concealed carry permits valid in all 50 states and routinely tells his audiences, as he did again here on Friday, that terrorist attacks like those last year in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. might have been prevented if more people were armed. But his support for gun rights has not always been so absolutist. In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” he wrote that he “generally” opposed gun control, but criticized the N. R. A. ’s outsize lobbying power, saying, “I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun. ” After President Obama spoke in 2012 at a vigil for those killed in the school shootings in Newtown, Conn. Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter: “President Obama spoke for me and every American in his remarks in #Newtown, Connecticut. ” On Friday, however, Mr. Trump took his support for gun rights an additional step. In January, he said he wanted to end zones in schools. In his speech here, he said he wanted to do away with them entirely. “We’re getting rid of zones,” he said, arguing that more guns would mean less gun violence, as his audience cheered. Officially throwing the N. R. A. ’s support to Mr. Trump, Chris W. Cox, executive director of the group’s political and lobbying arm, warned that Mrs. Clinton would appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court who would roll back gun rights. “We have to unite and we have to unite right now,” Mr. Cox said. (He also played a clip of Mrs. Clinton talking about the Second Amendment, but not before “accidentally” playing a video showing Mrs. Clinton barking like a dog.) The Secret Service prevented attendees from bringing knives and guns — ordinarily commonplace accessories at the convention — into the hall where Mr. Trump was speaking, prompting some grumbling. There was also some grumbling about the presidential campaign, despite the N. R. A. ’s endorsement. Dan Kelsey, 57, an I. T. consultant and N. R. A. member from Columbus, Ohio, said he was not excited about Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton, and was worried that Mr. Trump might shift his position on the Second Amendment. “He talks a good game, but I’m not sure what his core values are,” Mr. Kelsey said. “He’s a good entertainer and marketer, but I don’t know what he really believes. ” Yet to other members of the group, Mr. Trump’s promises to support the Second Amendment were reassurance enough. Dianne Jennings, 67, a certified N. R. A. pistol instructor from Dayton, Ohio, said she had “nothing nice to say” about Mrs. Clinton: “Basically, I detest her. ” Ms. Jennings said that she found Mr. Trump “entertaining” and “not politically correct” and that she thought he would do a good job as president. “I think people are just terrified of his persona, but I think he has a lot of different personas,” she said, “and he can use the right one in the right situation. ” | 0fake |
Key Architect Of The Iraq War Now A Trump Surrogate | While Donald Trump was on the campaign trail he blasted the Bush administration, saying they lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction, a talking point which led our country to invade a sovereign nation. Trump has blasted politicians who voted for the Iraq War. Trump argued that the move to topple Saddam Hussein may have been the worst decision in presidential history. But now, he s bringing Dick Cheney on board to help ensure that Rex Tillerson is confirmed next year as Trump s secretary of state.Some Republicans have made it clear they have reservations about Tillerson s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. So, Cheney is now Trump s surrogate in order to serve as a bridge between the Trump team and skeptical Republicans. Cheney is a former oil executive and longtime friend of Tillerson s, according to Politico.It s a scenario no one could have possibly foreseen: that one of the key architects of the Iraq War, which Trump slammed on the campaign trail, is now being enlisted as an emissary for a man Trump wants to help steer his ship of state.Wrong, Politico. At the present time, nothing is surprising anymore after Trump s election.Another transition aide said Cheney s imprimatur may serve as a good housekeeping seal of approval with Republican skeptics. And indeed, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio received a call from the former vice president earlier this week. The goal: To move Marco the right way, according to a source familiar with the conversation. Rubio will cast a pivotal vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which must approve the nomination before it proceeds to the full Senate.Cheney is also in close contact with senior Trump aides and speaks frequently with Mike Pence who has said he hopes to model his vice presidency on Cheney s. Mike relishes the advice, said a senior transition aide. The aide added that Cheney wants to be helpful to Trump s administration.You can t make this stuff up. Please just wake me up in four years. That swamp is now filled with terrifying creatures.Photo by Chip Somodevilla via Getty | 1real |
Democratic challengers launch attacks against Clinton, party leadership | Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to cement her standing as the rightful leader of the Democratic Party here Friday, but two of her challengers launched a fierce counterattack against her and a party establishment they see as trying to hand her the 2016 presidential nomination.
What began as a routine forum of candidate speeches evolved into a surprisingly dramatic day at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley issued thinly veiled attacks on Clinton and the party leadership.
Speaking from the dais, with DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz sitting a few feet away, O’Malley blasted the party’s limited number of sanctioned debates as a process “rigged” in favor of the front-runner. The DNC is holding six debates, only four before February’s first caucuses in Iowa, which O’Malley argued is a disadvantage for all the candidates and a disservice to Democrats generally.
“This sort of rigged process has never been attempted before,” said O’Malley, who has struggled to gain traction in the polls. He added: “We are the Democratic Party, not the undemocratic party.”
Sanders — who later told reporters he agreed with O’Malley — lamented low Democratic turnout in last year’s midterm elections and said the party must grow beyond “politics as usual” if it hopes to produce the level of voter enthusiasm required to retain the White House in 2016.
“We need a movement which takes on the economic and political establishment, not one which is part of that establishment,” said Sanders, who is an independent but caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.
Asked later whether he was speaking specifically about Clinton, he told reporters, “I’ll let you use your imagination on that.”
The barbs from Sanders and O’Malley came as Clinton and her campaign flexed their organizational muscle here. The front-
runner and her top aides worked aggressively behind the scenes this week to secure commitments from party leaders pledging to be delegates for her in next summer’s nominating convention in Philadelphia.
Clinton’s organizational push sent a clear signal to Vice President Biden, who has been weighing a late entry into the 2016 campaign, that he would begin far behind her.
In her address to a ballroom full of DNC members, Clinton sought to position herself as the undisputed Democratic standard-
bearer. She fired up the party faithful with a call to arms against Republicans as dangerously out of touch and peppered her remarks with gibes at current GOP front-runner Donald Trump — including a suggestion that his hair, although natural, is dyed like her own.
“The party of Lincoln has become the party of Trump,” Clinton said. She mocked Trump for suggesting that she did not understand women’s health issues and that he would be a better advocate. “Now that’s a general election debate that’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said.
Clinton said that Trump is getting most of the media attention this summer but that the other Republican candidates are making statements that ought to scare mainstream voters. “They’re Trump without the pizazz and the hair,” she said.
Clinton made no reference in her speech to the controversy surrounding her use of a private e-mail server while secretary of state. When asked about it later in a news conference, Clinton said: “I have said repeatedly that I did not send nor receive classified material, and I’m very confident when this entire process plays out, that will be understood by everyone. It will prove what I have been saying.”
Former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee raised eyebrows when he touted himself as scandal-free in his remarks. He later said this was not “a direct swipe at anybody.” But pressed on how Clinton has handled the e-mail issue, Chafee said: “The rules are the rules, and we all have to adhere to them, and when you don’t, you suffer the consequences. Unfortunately this is self-
inflicted.”
The fifth declared candidate, former senator Jim Webb of Virginia, did not attend because he was taking his daughter to college.
O’Malley used his time onstage to highlight his dissatisfaction with the DNC’s management of the debates. He argued forcefully that as Trump and other Republican candidates dominate news coverage with inflammatory rhetoric, Democrats would be wise to hold more, not fewer, nationally televised debates to highlight the differences between the parties.
“Will we let the circus run unchallenged on every channel while we cower in shadows under a decree of silence in the ranks? Or will we demand equal time to showcase our ideas?” O’Malley asked.
He slammed what he called a “cynical move” to limit the debates to six and to hold the only New Hampshire debate on a Saturday night in mid-December, the peak of the holiday shopping season.
“Whose decree is this exactly?” he asked provocatively. “Where did it come from? To what end or purpose?”
Wasserman Schultz, who was visibly miffed by O’Malley’s speech, said in an interview Thursday that she had consulted widely with past DNC chairs, as well as with the campaigns, before setting the debate schedule.
“We felt like this structure for actual debates was really the best one that could give maximum exposure that voters need to make a decision but that also would be manageable and give the candidates the opportunity and the time to go out and campaign in a retail way,” she said. | 0fake |
Billionaires fund anti-Trump delegate push | 232 photos, 131 quotes and 43 numbers that tell the story of America's craziest election. | 0fake |
Trump Gets HAMMERED After Tweeting That ‘Intelligence’ Has No Place In Politics (TWEETS) | If there is one thing that is certain, it s that at no point in a presidency riddled with white supremacists, xenophobes, Christofascists, assorted racists, and a big orange buffoon as Grand Wizard of it all, will intelligence come into play in any fashion but Donald Trump s unpresidented attacks on our intelligence agencies have caused many to question how much he knew about Vladimir Putin s hack of our election.In Trumpland, however, it is perfectly fine that a man The Donald once publicly wished would become his new best friend (the tweet is still up), Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, personally spearheaded not just a hack of Trump s political opponents but an aggressive propaganda and fake news campaign aimed at installing someone they can clearly control in the Oval Office. Even when presented with evidence of the hack, Trump has gone the route of repeatedly assaulting those who uncovered the information rather than the foreign leader who directly meddled in our election all while praising the guy who masterminded the attacks on our nation.On Sunday, Trump tweeted out a quote from his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, that pretty much sums up his entire administration. We certainly don t want intelligence interfering with politics and we don t want politics interfering with intelligence, Conway said in what will surely be a heavily-quoted interview for at least the next four years.If there s one thing Trump who loves the poorly educated very much has never allowed to come close to his politics it s intelligence, be it a measurement of intellect or evidence that his nice Russian friend personally orchestrated an attack on the United States. The Twitter community, of course, was there to let him know it:@realDonaldTrump oh we are all painfully aware that you re not bringing any intelligence into politics, donald Zach Holman (@holman) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews I must say: You have done a bang-up job of keeping intelligence out of all of your political decisions thus far. MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews This is another one of those tweets you should probably delete. It makes it way too easy to mock you. MatthewDicks (@MatthewDicks) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump do you prefer to receive foreign intelligence instead via Wikileaks and Russia? Americans have elected a traitor. ? (@VeeVee) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump With you in charge, I'm pretty sure there's little danger of intelligence interfering in *any* way with politics. Tom Coates (@tomcoates) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump we wouldn't want intelligence, would we? ? Zack Kopplin (@ZackKopplin) January 8, 2017Dear @realDonaldTrump: Worry not. "Intelligence interfering with politics" is the LAST thing any of us will ever worry about with you, hun. Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews I think it's pretty safe to say there won't be any intelligence in American politics for the next four years. . (@___Q__) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews Very little danger of intelligence interfering with anything you or Fox do in politics. Chris Fyvie (@ckfyvie) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews We are all painfully aware that intelligence will play no part in this presidency. Casanis Plays (@CasanisPlays) January 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @FoxNews you don't let intelligence get in the way of anything you do or say. You've proven that time and again. mcon (@twinlet133) January 8, 2017Donald Trump seems willing to attack anyone who threatens to uncover information related to Russia s hack of our election the multiple intelligence agencies that have all come to the conclusion that Putin personally led the effort, the American people (most of whom are fools and stupid people according to Trump), the media who dares mention anything he does that is unethical (which is a lot), and pretty much everyone but the former KGB Lieutennant Colonel who helped plant him in a position where he can (and has said he intends to) be very friendly to Russia.Apparently, attacking the intelligence agencies that uncovered uncomfortable information about your new bestie is how you make America great again. Featured image via Getty Images (Mark Wallheiser)/screengrab | 1real |
Single? No Children? No Will? Big Mistake - The New York Times | You would think I would know better. As an investigative journalist, I once spent months working on a series of articles about what happens to the estates of people who die without wills. It can be ugly. In New York City, politically connected lawyers, judges and contractors can, as our reporting team found, feed on these unguarded estates like leeches on flesh at a nudist camp lake. In one typical case, my colleagues and I at The New York Post found that a Queens Surrogate’s Court judge had appointed three lawyers connected to the local Democratic Party as “guardians” of potential heirs to the estate of a childless woman. Ostensibly in search of heirs, they spent part of the deceased woman’s $670, 000 estate on a junket to Puerto Rico for themselves, a court employee and their spouses. In the end, the lawyer siphoned off $116, 025 in fees, while the dead woman’s 14 cousins received inheritances of $33, 150 each. We worked our tails off on these articles back in 1998. At the end of the workday, I would return to the apartment I had bought downtown for around $100, 000 a year earlier. Single, I would sort through my mail, reading paycheck stubs noting that I was dutifully funneling 5 percent of my paycheck into a 401( k) matched by my employer. And if I had been run over by a taxi (or a vengeful Queens lawyer) and killed, the same vultures would be free to feed on my estate — because I was just like one of the unfortunates we had written about. I didn’t have a will. Nineteen years later, I still don’t. I’m not alone. More than 50 percent of adults do not have a will, according to Chas Rampenthal, general counsel of LegalZoom. Certain people never reach one of those obvious points in their lives to write one. If you are unmarried in middle age, do not have children and have never had a devastating disease or brush with death, making plans for what happens to your stuff if you’re not around may not feel pressing. But then you hit a milestone birthday, or a relationship becomes more committed, or your niece starts talking about attending an expensive art college — or all of the above, and the hotelier Ian Schrager and his partners start erecting a luxury across the park from your Lower East Side tenement. All of a sudden, you may realize that you are sitting on serious money that could matter to someone you care about. What to do? For Elias Colombotos, a painting contractor in Queens with no children, this moment came when his parents died, eight weeks apart, in 2012. Both had prepared very clear wills and other papers. In the case of his father, who had Parkinson’s disease and dementia, a health care proxy and other instructions left no doubt as to what to do about inserting a feeding tube. The answer was no. With his mother, the will revealed that she had, in clear and legally language, disinherited him and his siblings — although she had left money to her grandchildren. Soon after, Mr. Colombotos, now 57, called a lawyer to have his own will and other papers drawn, at a cost of $600. “That experience with my mother made me feel like this is an important thing to do right,” he said. “I realized how painful it could be, how much strife it could cause. ” Mr. Colombotos was very specific. He will be cremated. For now, some of his money will be split between two charities and the rest among his friends. His prized Yamaha acoustic guitar will be left to his sister, because it was such a moment of grace for them, when — both childless — he and she played music together at a beach house after their parents died. The experience had another beneficial effect for Mr. Colombotos: It pushed him to be more proactive in his dating life. “I can’t wait until I love someone and feel safe enough with them to make them my beneficiary,” he said. “It will be a nice feeling. ” Whether it’s best to make a simple handwritten will, to use an online legal service or to call a lawyer to make estate paperwork is a continuing debate. When I called lawyers, they said (not surprisingly) that using a lawyer is best. And when I called LegalZoom, with the online option, Mr. Rampenthal said, “We are talking about prices that start at $149 for a will bundle and $199 for living trust plans, which is often less than most lawyers charge for an hour of their time. ” The resulting documents, he said, are designed to stand up in any state. Jon Biondo, a veteran estates lawyer in New York, said he charges $750 for a basic estate package. “It’s not the most satisfying purchase,” he said, explaining one reason people put it off. “It doesn’t work until you die. ” A search of a mobile app store for wills and trusts yielded results. How to Write a Will for $2. 99 promises that it “includes some very helpful information for setting goals” and tips on “how to write a handwritten will. ” I pictured myself with a quill pen and parchment deeding some of my baseball cards to a childhood friend I hadn’t seen since I was 9. The headline on the only review was, “Not Worth It. ” Another New York estates lawyer, Anne Litwin, said there were some tricks of the trade that good lawyers knew. One is the best way to disinherit someone. “It’s better to almost disinherit them than to totally do it,” Ms. Litwin said. For instance, if you have an estate of $1 million, you could leave a closely related but troublesome family member $25, 000, and combine that with a clause saying that if anyone challenges the will in court, they lose their inheritance. “You need to dangle something in front of them to incentivize them not to protest,” Ms. Litwin said. But even a lawyer can’t make sure every final request is honored. Lorraine Massey, a grandmother and entrepreneur known for popularizing products, said she redid her estate after she sold her share in a company of which she was a founder. She asked her lawyer, she said, if she could specify in her will that no funeral director or anyone else straighten her hair for her final repose. The lawyer told her no, because by the time the will would be read, it would most likely be after the funeral. Her best strategy would be to repeat the request to her loved ones over the years. I decided I would go with the lawyers. The best way to start before visiting a lawyer is to write down what you want to leave to whom, said Joe Rosenberg, who teaches an estates class at the City University of New York School of Law. In my case, a copy of an early draft of the script from the “Festivus” episode of “Seinfeld,” signed by Jerry Stiller, is typical of my weird collectibles. Others include: a videotape of the first television commercial aired in the new millennium, originally broadcast somewhere in the South Pacific a promotional boxing card from the night Laila Ali made her professional debut a knife Ferran Adrià used to cook a Satchel Paige autograph and a nearly complete run of back issues of Heeb and Omni magazines. I don’t want a junk dealer hired by Surrogate’s Court coming in and dumping these gems. I decided that an old journalism chum, Gersh Kuntzman, author of a book on Chrismukkah, gets the “Seinfeld” script (even though I think I’ll outlive him, because he eats too many hot dogs). It’s a start. Sherry Amatenstein, a therapist and editor of “How Does That Make You Feel? True Confessions From Both Sides of the Therapy Couch,” said that for years, she has advised patients to make wills, even though she never reached a life milestone that prompted her to do so. “I have a condo, I have artworks, I have a dog, I have people I care about,” she said. As a friend of mine, she promised me that when I’m done with my will, she’ll do hers. “I think it’s an act of love to do a will,” she said, “because you’re trying to make life easier for those we leave behind. ” So, O. K. I’ve started the process. My friend Kiri gets the Adrià knife. I promise I’ll finish writing the rest of the damn thing soon. | 0fake |
Ucla Prof Would Rather Vote For Dog Poop Than Trump | Re: #UCLA PROF WOULD RATHER VOTE FOR DOG POOP THAN TRUMP "UCLA Professor" is an oxymoron. Peace is a lie, there is only passion.Through passion, I gain strength.Through strength, I gain power.Through power, I gain victory.Through victory, my chains are broken.The Force shall free me.Or something | 1real |
More on Trump’s Populism and How It Can Be Controlled By Government | 1real | |
Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Fund Asks For Only $5K But Get MUCH More | Efforts to stop protesters opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline have backfired spectacularly. Just last week, police in riot gear forcefully removed protesters from the area while the demonstrators were in a prayer circle. Crowdsourcing commenced on a GoFundMe page seeking $5,000 to help those camping in protest of the $3.8 billion pipeline.Instead, more than $1 million poured in on one GoFundMe page alone. Combined, $3 million has been raised for to help with legal costs, food and other supplies for protesters of the 1,200-mile pipeline. As of now, $1,302,643 has been raised and that figure keeps increasing each time the page is refreshed.CBS reports:It may also give protesters the ability to prolong their months-long encampments that have attracted thousands of supporters, as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe pursues the fight in court.More than $200,000 was raised between Thursday and Friday alone. It still feels unreal sometimes because it is such an astronomical figure to me, Ho Waste Wakiya Wicasa, the protester who set up the GoFundMe account said. The money goes as quickly as it comes, but without it having been as much as it is, we certainly wouldn t have been able to be as productive as we have been in the fight, he added.So far, more than 400 people have been arrested and that number includes the roughly 140 protesters who were taken into custody on Thursday when officers used tear gas and fired bean bags to get the demonstrators off the private land recently acquired by Energy Transfer Partners. However, the tribe says that authorities are infringing on tribal sovereignty and failing to respect two treaties ratified by the federal government.Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault called for peace in a statement during the standoff. Remain peaceful and prayerful and don t react to law enforcement aggression, he said.This week, the tribe asked the Department of Justice to open an investigation over local and state authorities violating civil rights. One hundred years from now they re going to hear those songs. They re going to hear that memory of what happened here at this camp, said Faith Spotted Eagle. The 68-year-old Native American says they are not protesters. They are water protectors. The land is sacred and the water is, too.You can contribute to this important cause here.Photo by Alex Wong via Getty. | 1real |
5,561 Killed in Iraq during October | Share This At least 5,561 people were killed and 2,463 were wounded across Iraq during October. These figures are estimates, perhaps even conservative ones. Breaking down the above numbers, we find that 1,629 civilians were killed, and 1,693 were injured. At least 303 security personnel were also killed, and 660 more were wounded in fighting. Militants lost an estimated 3,611 members, while 108 more are known to have been wounded. Again, these are very rough estimates. Also, one U.S. soldier was killed, and at least two French soldiers were wounded during October. Turkish airstrikes left at least 17 Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.) guerrillas dead as well. These figures are much higher than they were in September due to a massive operation that was launched against the city of Mosul. Last month only 2,824 people were killed and 1,208 were wounded. Due to the nature of the fighting in Iraq, accurate numbers may be impossible to obtain. The Iraqi government has been tight with releasing casualty statements concerning security personnel. On the other hand, authorities may be too loose with figures detailing militant losses. Those figures may also represent civilian losses counted as military. In other news: Iraq’s special forces entered the Gogjiali (Kokjali) district on Monday, which marks the first time security personnel have been within Mosul city limits since the Islamic State militants seized the city in 2014. They were able to progress to the Karama neighborhood. A Reuters reporter in nearby Bazwaya village — which was recaptured today — could see smoke rising from the Karama battle, and soldiers also fought in the Aden district. There are also new reports of resistance fighters attacking militants in the city. Special forces also captured the eastern villages of Subhi, Sunaidii, and Tubruq. Shi’ite militiamen reported freeing the western villages of Abu Shwayha, Albu Juradi, Arish, Aslya Huwaysh, Dalawiya Al Sharqiyan, Imam Hamza, Hasuna, Kharani Gargara, Khurba Tayir, Mushairafa, Sahi Abas, Sruj, Um Shanin, Um Sijqn, Zuwai’za’s, and Tal Shikham. On the northern front, troops liberated Najmook, Shalalat, and Tal Yabis. At least 408 people were killed and 71 were wounded in recent violence: Militants executed 300 people , civilians and former security personnel, north of Mosul in the village of Moshairefa . In Baghdad , at least 16 people were killed and 50 were wounded in various attacks around the city. Gunmen killed a Peshmerga soldier in Tel Skuf , as he was trying to defuse a bomb. In Mosul , militants killed 50 of their own and mutilated 20 others for fleeing the fighting. Seven militants were killed in fighting in the Aden district. An explosion killed several militant leaders. Read more by Margaret Griffis | 1real |
Even Indiana’s Republicans Are Trying To Erase Any Evidence Pence Ever Existed | While the entire nation is struggling with the question of who is worse, Donald Trump or Mike Pence, the state of Indiana is thrilled to be rid of the right-wing conservative Pence who was their governor until just a few weeks ago, and they re doing everything to erase his legacy and all of this is being orchestrated by the replacement that Pence picked.Governor Eric Holcomb was chosen by Pence as his lieutenant governor. Pence has often said that he s a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order. Holcomb, on the other hand is definitely a Christian, but he s a lot more pragmatic and frankly, next to Pence, anyone seems moderate, well, except perhaps the man who currently occupies the Oval Office.In just these last three weeks, Holcomb has cancelled a contract that would have leased cellphone towers to an Ohio company which would have left Indiana residents to foot the bill for construction projects.He also pardoned a wrongly convicted man who served nearly two decades in prison.Holcomb also pardoned Keith Cooper, who was wrongfully convicted of robbery nearly 20 years ago, and declared a disaster emergency for an East Chicago neighborhood where residents have been forced to relocate because of lead contamination.Pence had declined to pardon Cooper before leaving office, insisting that he exhaust his legal options despite resounding evidence of his innocence. Pence s refusal to exonerate the 49-year-old Chicago man came despite a pardon recommendation from the Indiana Parole Board and an online petition urging Pence to clear Cooper s name that had collected more than 100,000 signatures.Source: IndyStarWhile Holcomb hasn t exactly turned Indiana into a liberal haven, he does support a local needle exchange. Pence didn t. Pence preferred to take the see no evil approach and pretend that if we pray hard enough and disapprove firmly enough, people won t do drugs and they won t get sick from sharing needles. That doesn t work. To be fair, though, Pence did eventually succumb, but he still opposed giving local officials the authority to enact such an exchange.Right before he left office, Pence vetoed two bills. One gave university police departments (you know, the ones who are so often charged with investigating sexual assaults and hate crimes) total secrecy and the other prevented the state from establishing stronger environmental regulations than the feds without the General Assembly s approval. Both vetoes were overridden.House Minority Leader Scott Pelath, D-Michigan City, called the turn away from Pence s policies fascinating. The Mike Pence legacy came to a very quick end today, probably the shortest one in Indiana gubernatorial history, he said. We just saw his final two vetoes overridden. Gov. Holcomb made the very common sense decision to address the East Chicago lead problem, which has been our own Flint (Mich.) in the making. He pardoned an innocent man which seems basic human decency. And he allowed that bicentennial cellphone tower deal to die a cow s death here in the Hoosier state. Residents of Indiana aren t exactly hopeful that they ll turn blue, but it s interesting that Trump s (and Pence s) coattails seem to be non-existent, just a few weeks into the the administration. Trump is no leader and even other Republicans are beginning to see that.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 1real |
Turkey's Erdogan says may shut Iraqi border any moment: Hurriyet | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey may shut its border with northern Iraq at any moment after closing its air space to the region, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday, reviving a threat first made after Kurds there voted for independence. We have completely closed our air space to the regional government in northern Iraq, the paper cited Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Poland. Talks are continuing on what will be done regarding the land (border) ... We have not shut the border gates yet but this could happen too at any moment, he added. Turkey announced on Monday it was closing its air space to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and said it would work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the central Iraqi government. The Habur gate is the main transit point between Turkey and Iraq s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government. A Sept. 25 referendum, in which Kurds in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, alarmed Baghdad, Iraq s neighbors and Western powers, all of whom feared further regional conflict could arise from the vote. Subsequently Kurdish Peshmerga forces retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after the referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday. Ankara, which has been battling a three-decade insurgency in its own mainly Kurdish southeast, fears an independent Kurdish state on its borders would heighten separatist tension at home. | 0fake |
BREAKING REPORT: German Reporter Embedded With ISIS Reveals Plan For “Nuclear Tsunami” In West…”terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people” | Our open borders should be a tremendous help to them A German reporter who was allowed to embed with ISIS in Syria-Iraq says the terror group is planning a nuclear tsunami. The jayvee team hopes to wipe out hundreds of millions in a nuclear attackISIS claims it is infinitely closer to buying nuke and smuggling it into the United StatesThe terror group controls territory larger than than the United KingdomBarack Obama says he has no strategy to defeat the terror group.Via: Gateway PunditIsrael National News reported: A veteran German journalist who became the first to gain access as an embedded reporter with Islamic State (ISIS) revealed the jihadist terror group plans to bring nuclear annihilation across the globe.They are planning the largest religious cleansing in history. The journalist, Jurgen Todenhofer (75), released his findings in a book called Inside IS Ten Days in the Islamic State, reports the UK s Daily Express on Friday.Todenhofer, who previously was an MP in German Chancellor Angela Merkel s CDU party before turning to journalism in 2000 as a war reporter, spent ten days with ISIS.He was overseen during his visit by Jihadi John, the ISIS terrorist from the UK named Mohammed Emwazi who gained fame in gruesome beheading videos.According to the journalist, the West is unprepared for ISIS. He writes that the terrorists plan on killing several hundred million people. The west is drastically underestimating the power of ISIS. ISIS intends to get its hands on nuclear weapons, says Todenhofer, calling the group a nuclear tsunami preparing the largest religious cleansing in history. Those warnings are made all the more stark by the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East sparked by the Iran nuclear deal, with rival states such as Saudi Arabia eyeing their own nuclear arsenal leading to a higher proliferation and a higher chance that nuclear weapons could fall into ISIS hands. | 1real |
U.S., Mexican officials try to find common ground on security: sources | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Mexican delegation met U.S. military officials in southern Mexico on Tuesday to discuss security initiatives, sources said on Wednesday, as the two countries try to find common ground in tough negotiations over trade, security and immigration. The relationship between the United States and Mexico has become strained after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to build a wall between the two countries to keep out illegal immigrants, drug dealers and criminals and make Mexico pay for it. Lori Robinson, chief of the U.S. Northern Command, and Kurt Tidd, head of the Southern U.S. Command, attended the talks, two people familiar with the matter said. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity so they could discuss the meeting. It was one of the first known meetings between U.S. and Mexican officials since Trump became president in January, after threatening to upend years of cooperation between the two neighbors with divisive rhetoric on trade and security. One of the sources said the talks focused on Mexico’s commitment to securing its southern border to keep out criminals and illegal immigrants. The source said that U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson also attended. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray was not present. A third source said Socorro Flores, deputy minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, represented Mexico at the meeting. U.S. Northern Command spokesman Michael Kucharek confirmed Robinson and Tidd visited Mexico on Tuesday as part of “continued coordination in partner nation security,” adding that the two also went to Honduras and Guatemala. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Mexico City said: “The southern border visit has been planned for months and gave U.S. authorities a chance to learn first-hand about the challenges Mexico faces in protecting its borders.” The spokesman did not provide further details. Mexico denied media reports on Wednesday suggesting that Trump, on a recent call with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, had threatened to send U.S. troops into Mexico if the country did not step up efforts against its drug cartels. CNN later published what it said was the real transcript from the call, showing Trump taking a more measured stance, and offering U.S. help to combat Mexico’s “tough hombres.” Mexico’s presidential spokesman, Eduardo Sanchez, was not immediately able to comment on CNN’s report but said “it sounded more logical.” A summit between Trump and Pena Nieto that had been planned for January was canceled after Trump tweeted that it would be better for the Mexican leader not to come to the summit if Mexico would not pay for the wall. Pena Nieto canceled. Trump has threatened to levy a hefty tax on imports from Mexico to the United States. Mexico said on Wednesday it expected to begin formal talks on renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement from around the beginning of May. | 0fake |
Sacked Catalonia leader calls for opposition to Madrid's rule | MADRID/BARCELONA (Reuters) - Sacked Catalonian president Carles Puigdemont on Saturday called for peaceful democratic opposition to the central government s takeover of the region following its unilateral declaration of independence from Spain. Puigdemont, whose regional government was dismissed by Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday, accused Madrid of premeditated aggression against the will of the Catalans. Rajoy removed Puigdemont, took over the administration of the autonomous region and called a new election after Catalonia s parliament declared itself an independent nation on Friday. The bold if to all appearances futile action marked a potentially dangerous escalation of Spain s worst political crisis in the four decades since its return to democracy. It s very clear that the best form of defending the gains made up until now is democratic opposition to Article 155, Puigdemont said in a brief statement he read out in the Catalan city of Girona, referring to the legal trigger for the takeover. But he was vague on precisely what steps the secessionists would take as the national authorities are already moving into Barcelona and other parts of Catalonia to enforce control. Spanish government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo said it would welcome Puigdemont s participation in the regional elections it has called for Dec. 21. I m quite sure that if Puigdemont takes part in these elections, he can exercise this democratic opposition, Mendez de Vigo told Reuters TV in an interview. European countries, the United States and Mexico have rejected the Catalan declaration and expressed support for Spain s unity. Puigdemont signed the statement as President of Catalonia, demonstrating he did not accept his ousting. We continue persevering in the only attitude that can make us winners. Without violence, without insults... and also respecting the protests of the Catalans who do not agree with what the parliamentary majority has decided, he said. The secessionists say a referendum on Oct. 1 gave them a mandate for independence. However, less than half of eligible voters turned out for the ballot, which Madrid declared illegal and tried to stop. Opinion polls show that more than half of the 5.3 million people eligible to vote in the wealthy northeastern region, which is already autonomous, do not want to break from Spain. But emotions are running high and the next few days will be tricky for Madrid as it embarks on enforcing direct rule. Calling a new regional election is something of a gamble by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy as it could increase the numbers of pro-independence supporters in a new parliament. But Mendez de Vigo said it would give Catalans the final say about how they felt. Asked what would happen if Puigdemont had to face prosecution, Mendez de Vigo said judicial and political powers were separate in Spain and that no one is above the law. He did not comment further. Catalonia s police force told its officers to stay neutral, a step towards averting possible conflict following doubts over how the Mossos d Esquadra, as they are called, would respond if ordered to evict Puigdemont and his government. The force is riven by distrust between those for and against independence and also estranged from Spain s national police forces, Mossos and national officers have told Reuters. Some Catalan officers stood between national police and those trying to vote during the referendum. Given that there is it is likely to be an increase in gatherings and rallies of citizens... and that there are people of different thoughts, we must remember that it is our responsibility to guarantee the security of all and help these to take place without incident, an internal memo said. Government buildings, the headquarters of national political parties, ports, airports, courts, and the Bank of Spain were being guarded, the Interior Ministry said. Units of the regional force could be replaced if events made that necessary, it said. The Madrid government also sacked the Mossos chief, Josep Lluis Trapero, who became a hero to the secessionists after his force took a much softer stance than national police in enforcing the referendum ban. Spain s High Court barred Trapero from leaving the country and seized his passport as part of an investigation for alleged sedition, although it has not ordered his arrest. In Barcelona, thousands of independence supporters packed the Sant Jaume Square in front of the regional headquarters on Friday night, waving Catalan flags and singing traditional songs in the Catalan language as bands played. But there was no trouble overnight and the streets were quiet on Saturday. The main secessionist group, the Catalan National Assembly, has urged civil servants not to follow orders from the Spanish government and to mount peaceful resistance while a pro-independence trade union, the CSC, called a strike. The government said it would ensure a minimum service. About 1,000 people took part in a pro-unity rally in Madrid on Saturday and others turned out in the northern city of Valladolid an indication of the resentment the independence drive has caused in the rest of Spain. Aitor Sanchez, a 30-year-old worker, said he was saddened the government had taken control of Catalonia but it had no choice. These are delicate moments in our country. But I believe we must respect the law. The chaos has prompted an exodus of businesses from Catalonia, which contributes about a fifth of Spain s economy, the fourth-largest in the euro zone. Tourism in hugely popular Barcelona has been hit, and markets have shown signs of concern. European leaders have also denounced the push, fearing it could fan separatist sentiment around the continent. | 0fake |
CNN POSTS TRUTH ABOUT TRUMP POLLS…Then Immediately REGRETS It…We Have Screen Shots! | HILLARY IS TOAST!Here are the polls that had must ve pained CNN to post:CNN, The most biased political media source there is, polled its viewers, & even they agree WE NEED TRUMP #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/MR3LqIqPeP Jesse (@EaglesJesse) July 22, 2016MSNBC isn t the only leftist cable news network to be shocked by the most recent polls:An @MSNBC online poll asked: "Will Hillary be elected president?"After 78,000 votes 72% Say NO#Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/Nqrz36r3K5 Jesse (@EaglesJesse) July 23, 2016This liberal apparently panicked after the attention his crybaby tweet got and removed his tweet: | 1real |
Kenya court awards 4 million shillings to girl strip-searched by police | NAIROBI (Reuters) - A Kenyan court on Monday awarded a young woman four million shillings in damages after she was strip-searched by police who said they were looking for drugs. The incident in August 2015 provoked an outcry in the East African country after images of the half-naked 18-year-old schoolgirl were posted on social media. She pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana shortly after the incident and was sentenced to 18 months on probation. In the lawsuit she later filed jointly with a child rights group, the young woman said the photos humiliated her and sought legal compensation. Kenyan high court judge John Mativo said in his ruling that the student was entitled to the four million shillings ($38,815) because her constitutional rights to dignity had been violated. The student had been traveling with more than 40 others on a bus home for the holidays when she was stopped by the police. The court s ruling is a rare victory in the East African country s legal system against the police. Although no police officers were tried or found guilty in the case, the ruling was an acknowledgment of wrongdoing. A government civilian body exists to oversee the police, but few officers are charged and convictions are extremely rare. | 0fake |
BREAKING: PRESIDENT TRUMP MAKES HIS PICK For The Supreme Court | JUDGE NEIL GORSUCH A strict conservative similar to Justice Scalia A STRICT CONSTITUTIONALISTJudge Neil Gorsuch, 49, is President Donald Trump s pick for appointment to the Supreme Court to fill the seat vacated a year ago by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. THE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP:BREAKING: Donald Trump reveals that his choice for US Supreme Court is Neil Gorsuch, 49 https://t.co/D91eYAcIMZ https://t.co/dbCiP2bP2U CNN (@CNN) February 1, 2017Gorsuch has the typical pedigree of a high court justice. He graduated from Columbia, Harvard and Oxford, clerked for two Supreme Court justices and did a stint at the Department of Justice.Since 2006, he has served on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, Colorado. His supporters note that he is an outdoorsman who fishes, hunts and skis. On the court, conservatives hope he could become the intellectual heir to Scalia, long the outspoken leader of the conservative bloc. The real appeal of Gorsuch nomination is he s likely to be the most effective conservative nominee in terms of winning over Anthony Kennedy and forging conservative decisions on the court, said Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center. He s unusual for his memorable writing style, the depth of his reading and his willingness to rethink constitutional principles from the ground up.Like Justice Scalia, he sometimes reaches results that favor liberals when he thinks the history or text of the Constitution or the law require it, especially in areas like criminal law or the rights of religious minorities, but unlike Scalia he s less willing to defer to regulations and might be more willing to second-guess Trump s regulatory decision. Read more: Politico | 1real |
In Brexit poker, clock narrows transition options | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Nerves are fraying in the Brexit talks, negotiators are trying to work out if the other side is bluffing about walking away, and a ticking clock is fast narrowing British options come March 2019. Philip Hammond, Britain s finance minister, echoed recent EU assertions when he said that a transition period to some new relationship was a wasting asset , the value of which would diminish significantly for both sides if its form remains unclear to businesses much after the start of the new year. As negotiators in Brussels make little progress before Prime Minister Theresa May meets EU leaders next week, a warning about a breakdown in talks from a minister seen strongly to favor a business-friendly bespoke transition out of the EU came a day after the EU summit chair spoke of a similar new year deadline. Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that if London fails to settle divorce terms by December, and so unlock talks on the transition and future trade pact, then the EU would reconsider its objectives. That reflects mounting doubts across Europe that any legal exit deal can be struck. The longer the stand-off goes on, EU negotiators said, the more Britain s choice come March 30, 2019, will be between the hard Brexit by which it will simply quit all EU systems and be treated like, say, Australia, and a virtual status quo, staying in most EU systems, without voting rights, rather like Norway. The closer we get, the less there is to discuss about a transition and the more it just goes to a standstill transition, with Britain still in everything, but without a vote, one said. Pretty soon, said another, It will be Norway or nothing. While all such commentary reflects the sides jockeying for negotiating advantage, the evidence this week is that they remain far apart and are getting tetchy. May and the EU traded jabs over whose court the ball is in after the prime minister made concessions in a speech at Florence on Sept. 22. Behind closed doors, British negotiators voiced outraged surprise that her offer was seen as insufficient to launch talks on the future relationship. It s hard to say it was genuine, one EU official said of the show of emotion. It s a form of pressure. Brexit Secretary David Davis and EU negotiator Michel Barnier are due to give a news conference around noon (1000 GMT) on Thursday to give an update on the week s progress. Businesses are sounding the alarm. A German industry federation warned members to start preparing for a very hard Brexit . A senior representative of London s financial services industry told a Brussels audience this week that a legal transition agreement must be reached by the end of this year. Most importantly, it must reflect the status quo, said Catherine McGuinness of the City of London Corporation. There is no feasibility in asking firms to transition to a transition. If uncertainty continues, businesses will vote with their feet. Hammond ruled out budgeting yet for more customs and border facilities, and few on the continent believe threats of a walkout they say would hurt Britain more than them. So leaders will watch May s struggle to unite her government and sit tight. One senior EU diplomat said British counterparts were in such a weak position that sometimes I feel sorry them . For many in Brussels, that makes a virtual status quo after Brexit the increasingly likely outcome: In March 2019, Britain will formally leave, said another EU official. But de facto most of the existing arrangements will remain ... They will have their celebration of independence and then we will sit down to talking business again. May insists a two-year transition period is enough to agree a new free trade pact, but many question that. John Bruton, the former prime minister of Ireland, has recommended an alternative to either no deal at all or a virtual status quo transition just keeping Britain fully in the EU for four years beyond 2019. Arguing that the two-year deadline set by Article 50 of the EU treaty raises the risk of talks collapsing, and that agreeing first a transition and then another accord is complex, Bruton said this week that Britain and the EU should agree to a six-year negotiating period, with Britain only leaving in 2023. Neither wants any extension. But Bruton warned: The present tight time frame ... increases the likelihood of miscalculation and of the UK leaving the EU with no deal at all. | 0fake |
WATCH: Trump Gets GRILLED Over This Weird Claim He Keeps Making (VIDEO) | During an interview on CNN Sunday morning, Jake Tapper pressed Donald Trump hard asking for some shred of evidence that the presumptive Republican frontrunner s claims regarding the Iraq War are true.Trump attempted to position himself against Hillary Clinton s vote in favor of the Iraq War: I have a very strong temperament, but I have a temperament that s totally under control. And [Hillary Clinton] mentions that I ll bring us into war. She s the one that wanted to go into Iraq. She raised her hand. She didn t know what the hell she was doing. She raised her hand. I said, I don t want to go into Iraq. Iraq is going to destabilize the Middle East, and I was 100 percent right, Trump told Tapper.Now, this might actually be a legitimate talking point if this were a normal election and Trump wasn t Trump. However, that is not at all the case. That s why Tapper decided to call out Trump s statement that he was against the Iraq War before it started.Here is a transcript of the exchange:JAKE TAPPER: Can I just say one point on that, I have looked so long and hard for any evidence TRUMP: I ll give it to you. 2004, they had newspaper articles.TAPPER: Right, but the war started in 2003.TRUMP: It did, but you know what, you look at I did an interview with Howard [Stern], and that interview was the first time I was ever asked the question. Don t forget I was an entrepreneur. I m a real estate person.TAPPER: But didn t you say to Howard that you thought it was a good idea?TRUMP: This was before the war started, long before the war started and it was a very, like, I don t know. First, nobody ever asked me the question, when you re do what I did nobody was talking about a lot of the questions that you ask me today, and I was I sort of like, well, I don t know, maybe, I don t know. By the time that started, I was totally against it, and from 2004 on, there s a lot of proof of that, because, as you know, there was articles in magazines, there was a lot of articles.TAPPER: Yeah. A year after the war started.TRUMP: No, no, but I was against it from before it started. And if you go back and look at that interview, and I ll get it for you if you want, but that interview was substantially before the war started. It was the first time I was ever asked the question. And even that, it wasn t like, oh yeah, we should go in. It was a very, like yeah, maybe.TAPPER: The only thing I would say, and then we don t have to belabor this point, is if there is evidence of you being against the war strongly before the war actually started, I would love to see that.TRUMP: OK, but I think there is evidence.TAPPER: I just haven t seen it.TRUMP: I think there is evidence. I haven t been asked that question before. Nobody said that to me before. I think there is evidence, I ll see if I can get it. But I will say, from the beginning of 2004, I mean I ve had articles, and I mean there are magazines TAPPER: 2004 no question.TRUMP: I was against the war a long time ago and it destabilized the Middle East, and that s exactly what I said was going to happen.While the political theater of watching Trump try to back up one of his claims without there being any actual evidence to back his claims is always entertaining, Trump accidently exposed a huge weakness of his in the interview. No one cares what Trump has had to say about anything before this election cycle. His greatest achievement in the political realm until now was his fanning of the flames that was the birther conspiracy theory.No one cared in 2013 what Trump had to say about the Iraq War then. Trump has alleged that the reason that there isn t any evidence of his disapproval of the Iraq War was because no one asked him about it. Who would ask the Trump of 2003 his opinion on any matter of seriousness? He was reality television star. He didn t matter.That being said, if Trump did actually have such strong feelings against the Iraq War, why didn t he bring it up. Trump had the money and social capital to launch a campaign against the Iraq invasion that could have possibly have had an actual impact.Yet he didn t. That s because Trump is a selfish opportunist and taking a stand at the right time in history is not in his nature.You can watch the interview below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5dC2l8j6UUFeatured image from video screenshot | 1real |
Under Trump, Congress likely to pull plug on medical device tax | WARSAW, Indiana/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When Donald Trump takes over as president on Jan. 20, one of the first business tax breaks he delivers is likely to go to the U.S. medical device industry and companies like Mark Throdahl’s. The chief executive of OrthoPediatrics Corp, based in northern Indiana, said his company has been able to hire more workers since the temporary suspension effective last January of a federal tax on medical devices. The tax was imposed as part of outgoing President Barack Obama’s signature 2010 healthcare law. Throdahl said he hopes the incoming Republican-led Congress and president will permanently repeal the tax. Trump and U.S. lawmakers are likely to do that, according to lawmakers, lobbyists and industry executives, in a step that also would help larger medical device makers such as Medtronic Inc, Boston Scientific, St. Jude Medical Inc and Johnson & Johnson. Tax cuts are Republican gospel, and Trump’s new Republican administration is widely expected to make them happen. The medical device tax may be one of the first on the chopping block. It was first imposed in January 2013 as a funding mechanism for the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, a law that has brought medical coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. But Republicans hate Obamacare and this particular tax has powerful enemies in both parties. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said repealing the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare, will be the first order of business in the Senate when it convenes in January. Whether cutting taxes, including the one on medical devices, will deliver more jobs remains to be seen. The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, said in January 2015, when the medical device tax was fully in effect, that it was having only “fairly minor” impact on production of devices and employment in the industry. That may not matter much, as Republican lawmakers and lobbyists increasingly try to link tax cuts to job creation, perhaps sensing this connection will resonate with Trump, who made big promises in his campaign about restoring U.S. industrial employment. The medical device industry, in its long-running assault on the device tax, is seeking to frame the fight as a jobs issue. Immediately after Trump’s Nov. 8 election victory, industry lobbying group AdvaMed wrote to him and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor, asking for permanent repeal of the tax. In the letter, AdvaMed President Scott Whitaker wrote, “The medical device tax has been a significant drag on medical innovation, and resulted in the loss or deferred creation of jobs, reduced research spending, and slowed capital expansion.” Industry complaints like these led Congress last year to temporarily suspend the 2.3 percent excise tax on the sale of non-retail medical devices, such as pacemakers, heart valves and artificial hips. It had been in effect for only three years. OrthoPediatrics, founded in 2006, develops and markets implantable orthopedic devices, such as metal plates that can be attached to bones, to treat deformities and traumatic injuries in children. It has 60 employees in its Warsaw, Indiana headquarters, and 94 sales representatives around the United States. When the tax was in full effect, Throdahl said, OrthoPediatrics “had almost a headcount freeze during 2015” because of the revenue that was siphoned away by the tax. Since the tax’s temporary suspension, he said, “We’ve resumed an aggressive pace of hiring and investment.” There are about 9,000 U.S.-based medical device manufacturers. The industry accounts for about 520,000 U.S. jobs and has $150 billion in direct sales, AdvaMed spokesman Mark Brager said. Indiana is home to several device companies. So are Minnesota, California and Massachusetts. Lawmakers from these states helped push through the temporary suspension of the device tax. Repealing the tax would further improve the already favorable tax profile of Medtronic, one of the largest U.S. medical device companies. Two years ago, Medtronic did an “inversion” deal, which is when a U.S. company shifts its home base to another country, at least on paper, to cut its tax bills. Medtronic is now technically based in Ireland, though it is still managed in Minnesota. Asked whether Medtronic expects the tax to be repealed, company spokesman Fernando Vivanco said, “It’s much too early to speculate on future tax policy.” Republicans said the industry has little reason to fear that the tax will ever return. Senator John Barrasso, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said Obamacare repeal legislation will move next year in a way that will circumvent expected Democratic resistance. “The plan is to move the entire piece that we moved last year,” Barrasso said, referring to Republican-backed repeal legislation that ultimately was vetoed by Obama. “And it did include the medical device repeal, so I would expect that to be part of the list as well. It’s to repeal the taxes related to Obamacare,” Barrasso added. J.C. Scott, head of government affairs at AdvaMed, said companies “feel a great sense of urgency in trying to get complete repeal done early next year, rather than later in the year, because companies need certainty.” Repealing the tax would worsen the federal budget deficit. “Any time you repeal a tax, that is a loss of revenue to the federal government,” said Jack Hoadley, a research professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. But this tax was never a big one, relatively speaking. When imposed, it raised barely $2.5 billion a year, less than expected. By comparison, federal tax subsidies to help people obtain health insurance under Obamacare in 2016 were estimated to be $660 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said. Ever since the tax was put on hold, it has been viewed as endangered. “At the time it was suspended, we were told by people in Washington that in all probability it will not be reinstituted. But still, we’ll all sleep better at night knowing that it’s gone,” OrthoPediatrics CEO Throdahl said. | 0fake |
Trump asks government agencies for plans to cut spending | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, who has proposed cuts to an array of government agencies, is asking department heads to offer up plans to operate more efficiently. Trump’s budget director, Mick Mulvaney, told reporters on Tuesday he would be instructing agencies to outline how they will comply with the president’s budget, which slashed spending for foreign aid and many domestic programs. The federal hiring freeze imposed shortly after Trump entered office will be lifted on Wednesday, but agencies will be asked to remain mindful of Trump’s goal to reduce the federal workforce, Mulvaney said during a briefing. Mulvaney acknowledged that the president’s budget would have to be approved by the Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers from both parties have balked at some of the drastic reductions. “One of the reasons this is so difficult to do is you just can’t wave a magic wand in the Oval Office and do these things,” Mulvaney said. “There will be certain things for which we will need legislative authority.” In the bare bones budget issued last month, the White House did not offer many specific details on how the budget cuts would be achieved. Mulvaney will ask departments to fill in some of those blanks. Preliminary plans are due from departments in June, with the final versions expected in September. Not every department gets a cut under Trump’s plan. Mulvaney stressed that some agencies including the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs department will be able to beef up their workforce. | 0fake |
From ‘Pitch Perfect’ to Broadway, He’s Vocal About A Cappella - The New York Times | “You can hear a whoosh of air as the train approaches,” Deke Sharon said, breaking down the cacophony on a subway platform into its component parts. “There’s the high screech of the tires, and underneath it all there’s a low rumble. ” For good measure, he emulated each sound. Mr. Sharon may be as perky as you might imagine the “guru of a cappella” to be, but little can prepare you for his infectious good cheer. “This is me mellow!” he exclaimed with boundless enthusiasm — a mood even more striking considering he was waiting for a C train in the chaotically busy 42nd Street station. Looking fetchingly in a blazer and jeans, he showed no sign of the stress that comes with opening a rather unconventional Broadway show. As if travel to workshops, camps, master classes, concerts and recording studios, as well as overseeing the touring group Vocalosity, weren’t enough, Mr. Sharon has spent the past few months on the vocal arrangements for “In Transit. ” It’s the first a cappella musical on Broadway, created by a quartet of songwriters including Kristen a of songs for the animated film “Frozen. ” The short commute from his temporary Manhattan apartment to the Circle in the Square Theater, where “In Transit” is in previews, constituted field research for Mr. Sharon, as the show’s characters all cross paths on the subway. “I would come down here and listen,” said Mr. Sharon, a tall and lanky Bay Area resident. “But I also wanted to get a sense of the relationship between people, because a cappella is about the interconnectedness of voices and individuals. ” This last point is the crux of what Mr. Sharon, 48, calls his lifelong mission of creating harmony through harmony. To that end he leaves no outlet unturned. His jobs have included serving as executive producer, coach and arranger on the NBC reality show “The ” (which spawned the hugely successful vocal group Pentatonix) and writing the arrangements for both “Pitch Perfect” movies. In the second film, he also sang many of the backup harmonies for the villainous team Das Sound Machine and had a cameo as a German judge. Mr. Sharon has created a cappella arrangements for about 2, 000 songs and has written several books, including the new “The Heart of Vocal Harmony. ” So when time came to retool “In Transit” for a bigger stage after an Off Broadway run in 2010, Ms. and her immediately thought of him. “We were really into ‘The ’ and of course we knew Deke was in the House Jacks, which was the first big professional, a cappella group,” Ms. who sang in a vocal group at Williams College, said in a phone interview. Mr. Sharon was a of the House Jacks in 1991, with singers he had met on the college circuit. It was a bold move at a time when a cappella was not popular, aside from freak hits like Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. ” Yet in hindsight, Mr. Sharon had the background and dedication required to take a cappella to the next level. This, after all, is someone who says he could sing before he could talk and whose parents signed him for a church choir at the ripe age of 5. He later participated in musical theater but had an a cappella epiphany in his freshman year at San Francisco University High School, where he led the barbershop quartet in a production of “The Music Man. ” A few years later, Mr. Sharon enrolled at Tufts University just so he could join that school’s Beelzebubs, an a cappella group. The love wasn’t immediately returned: He got in only on his third audition. “They said I was overzealous,” Mr. Sharon recalled. “My was perfect, so when I pointed out a small mistake I’d made, they thought I was pretentious. ” (Benji in the “Pitch Perfect” movies is partly based on Mr. Sharon.) College was also when Kurk Richard Toohey Jr. officially became Deke Sharon. “It wasn’t meant as a stage name,” he explained. “Everybody called me Deke, and my mom had remarried, so I had all these different names in my childhood. I just wanted an identity of my own. ” The same year he helped found the House Jacks, Mr. Sharon also created the Contemporary A Cappella Society as part of his effort to cement the community and improve its outreach. But it’s where his temperament — earnestly upbeat, but with a humor and a subtly forceful undertone blocking any threat of saccharine — is most effective. “My knowledge of a cappella was limited, but Deke is very good at meeting people where they are and giving them what they need so they can get where he wants them,” recalled Birgitte who played the leader of Das Sound Machine in “Pitch Perfect 2” and stars in the Broadway revival of “Les Liaisons Dangereuses. ” Mr. Sharon’s interpersonal and technical skills were critical for a show like “In Transit,” which presented several challenges for the cast and crew — starting with the fact that the actors double up as the orchestra and almost never stop singing. “Sometimes they go offstage, change their costume, walk around the back of the house and come back in from another side, singing all the while,” Mr. Sharon said. “And they can’t miss a beat, go out of time or rhythm. The technical difficulty is the highest not only that I’ve ever worked on, but that I’ve ever known to be done a cappella. ” To sync with each other, the actors wear monitors so they can best hear all the vocal layers as well as the musical supervisor, Rick who voices his cues from backstage. Getting used to the earbuds was a steep learning curve. Margo Seibert, one of the stars, said it was like trying to sing while putting your head under water in a bathtub — a “ moment” for her. “The first week, their faces looked like they’d just eaten a bad lemon,” Ms. said of the cast, laughing. “But Deke was so confident and positive that everyone went, ‘O. K.!’ And that’s a gift to have in the room. ” A “huge a cappella nerd,” Justin Guarini, one of Ms. Seibert’s was in a vocal group in high school. Still, he appreciated Mr. Sharon’s input. “I’m learning from him, and it’s an awesome feeling,” he said. “He’s not a teacher so much as an educator. ” For the tireless Mr. Sharon, a Broadway show is just one more way to bring about a culture in which everybody sings and where diversity is not just lip service but a structural asset. “Most choral ensembles want a homogeneity of sound,” he said, “but I want a different configuration of sounds and notes and voices. The overall experience of seeing these very diverse people onstage together makes a statement that is so necessary in today’s society. ” Ms. added: “He truly believes that groups of people singing together creates goodness in the world. And at this moment in time, we really need that kind of harmony. ” | 0fake |
Four Prominent Suffragist Grave Sites in the Bronx Anticipating a Surge in Visitors This Election Day - The New York Times | Susan B. Anthony’s grave site, in Rochester, is a perennial destination for women celebrating their freedom to vote, but on Election Day, Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx would like to remind New Yorkers to share the love. At Woodlawn, the grave sites of four other prominent suffragists could use some “I Voted” stickers, like those dotting Anthony’s grave, David Ison, the cemetery’s executive director, said on Monday. The cemetery will even provide the stickers. The idea for turning the sites into destinations came this year after seeing the popularity of Anthony’s grave site grow on social media, Mr. Ison said. The need for some positive messaging after a bruising election season was also important. “We thought, ‘We’re going to do something that’s not all about Trump and all about Clinton,’” Mr. Ison said. On Election Day, visitors will be encouraged to leave their stickers on cardboard signs next to the grave sites of four suffragists buried in Woodlawn: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anthony’s friend and a of the National Woman Suffrage Association Carrie Chapman Catt, who founded the League of Women Voters and who is buried next to Mary Garrett Hay, who assisted and advised her and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, a multimillionaire who gave her opinions and her money to the movement. On Monday, as the sun was setting and shadows turned the cemetery chilly, the site of Stanton’s grave was lonely. About 15 “I Voted” stickers were posted near the family monument. A single sticker for Hillary Clinton, the country’s first female presidential nominee from a major party, who has nodded to the suffragists’ legacy throughout her campaign, was also posted. Only one visitor passed by, a man who called out “not yet” to a reporter’s remark that no sticker for Mrs. Clinton’s opponent, Donald J. Trump, had been posted. The graves of the three other suffragists were also deserted. The quiet display is in contrast to reports from the resting place of Susan B. Anthony, where women approach every few minutes with their daughters, friends and mothers. This year, the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester anticipates so many visitors that it said it would be open extended hours on Election Day to allow voters the opportunity to swing by and leave a sticker. Barbara Selesky, Woodlawn’s director of marketing, said on Tuesday that the cemetery would extend its visiting days, inviting people to leave their “I Voted” stickers until Sunday. For visitors who make the trek to the Bronx, the crew at Woodlawn asks just one thing: Please keep the stickers off the granite. The museum has put up a display next to the tombstone where visitors can leave stickers and other sticky mementos. “Stickers on graves have become a problem,” Susan Olsen, the cemetery’s historian, said. “It’s love and it’s honoring, but it just causes problems. ” At Woodlawn, a cemetery roughly half the size of Central Park, the legacy of four prominent suffragists competes for the limelight with several more famous neighbors, including Miles Davis, Celia Cruz and Herman Melville. When asked to explain the difference in popularity, Mr. Ison and Ms. Olsen both joked in unison, “There’s nothing else to do in Rochester. ” (Also, they said, Anthony was on the $1 coin.) But if the work of the suffragists has taught us anything, it’s that Stanton and Anthony might not have seen this as a competition. In a way, it may be fitting of how they saw their different legacies: Stanton, a married mother of seven who lived in New York, supplied speech material and support as Anthony traveled extensively as a public face of the movement. “They saw their relationship very clearly,” Ms. Olsen, Woodlawn’s historian, said. “She’s in the metropolis, and Anthony goes all over the place. They were brilliant as far as how their partnership worked. ” Neither woman lived to see the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920. In Stanton’s obituary, published in The New York Times in 1902, Anthony fondly recalled their dynamic, saying, “She forged the thunderbolts and I fired them. ” | 0fake |
Republicans Threatening To Create Havoc At Polls To Root Out ‘Voter Fraud’ | Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr
Donald Trump has been claiming for weeks that the election is going to be “rigged” to prevent him from winning. He has made repeated calls to his supporters to go to the polls and keep an eye on what is going on. Even though a number of GOP candidates and officeholders have rejected Trump’s claim that there will be massive voter fraud, in some places the Republican Party is holding training classes for poll watchers.
In-person voter fraud, which is what the GOP has claimed for several years is costing their candidates elections, has been repeatedly proven to be so rare as to almost not exist. But that doesn’t stop people like Trump from raising the alarm about it. And what he has been saying is having an effect.
According to The Washington Times, Arizona Republican officials say that in 2012 their poll watcher training sessions attracted maybe 50 or 60 people. This year, thanks to Trump’s Chicken Little-type warning, that number has increased to over 1,000.
In Virginia, which has moved from red to purple to relatively blue in recent years, poll watcher trainees at a class in Fairfax County, just outside Washington D.C., expressed their belief that Trump is correct , according to The Wall Street Journal.
Penny Hendrix, a 52-year-old stay at home mom, said this:
“Very clearly there is going to be massive voter fraud, and it will definitely be to ensure Hillary Clinton wins. I’ve been concerned about this for some time, and Trump bringing it up is raising awareness.”
Except that he is raising awareness of a problem that isn’t really a problem at all. Even the extremely right-wing Heritage Foundation, which produced a list of voter fraud convictions , could only put together about 300 examples. Now, 300 cases of voter fraud in one national election where millions of ballots are cast is a very small amount. But the Heritage list covers multiple years and multiple elections, making the impact even smaller than miniscule. The GOP has truly become an organization of Don Quixotes who are preparing to tilt at imaginary illegal voters.
The leader of the Virginia poll watcher training, Republican activist Reagan George, told the attendees that they can’t challenge someone just because it looks like that person is going to be voting for Democrats. But he followed that statement by regaling his audience with stories of Democrats taking pictures of their votes so they can be rewarded by union officials or other GOP bogeymen. He also told them of how Democrats in some areas of the country have been getting the severely disabled to vote, even those who don’t really understand what is going on. And has George seen things like that happen with his own eyes? Of course not! But he has heard stories. And to a conservative, any story you hear from another conservative about some alleged misdeed carries much weight than actual facts and evidence.
There’s not going to be massive voter fraud in this election, just as there has never been massive voter fraud before. Even in what was perhaps the most contentious election in recent U.S. history, the one in 2000, the issues with voting affected the outcome, in only one state — Florida. And as we all well know, those problems were caused not by voter fraud, but by poor election mechanics. What Trump and his GOP allies are attempting is to create bedlam on election day, and maybe in the process manage to win by intimidating hundreds or even thousands of legal voters in key states.
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A Whale Takes Up Residence in the Hudson River - The New York Times | When Dr. Rachel Dubroff and her family chose their apartment at Riverside Boulevard and 63rd Street in Manhattan, they were thrilled by its picturesque views of the Hudson River. But they did not expect to have a seat to an annual event. For two years in a row, Dr. Dubroff said on Tuesday, she has spotted a whale swimming outside her living room window. Last year, she didn’t quite believe the sighting was real. But she saw a whale again on Saturday — and in the same spot again on Sunday — and news reports confirmed her hunch: The Hudson River has a resident humpback. “It was general excitement and shock,” Dr. Dubroff, 39, said, “and how thrilling that a whale can be in the Hudson, based on what we see float by sometimes. ” Indeed, the Hudson, as scenic as it is, does not scream “whale habitat. ” But experts say cleanup and conservation efforts have led to cleaner waters and an abundance of fish, amenities that have attracted at least one humpback whale to the river waters off Manhattan this month. There are other humpbacks in waters nearby. According to Jen Goebel, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whales have been spotted near New York. And the Coast Guard said in a statement on Monday that it had fielded reports of a whale sighting in northern New Jersey waters, swimming from Sandy Hook to Raritan Bay. The whale that Dr. Dubroff saw in the West 60s last weekend is thought to be the same one that has traversed the waterway, traveling to Liberty Island and to the George Washington Bridge, since it was first sighted around Nov. 9, according to the Coast Guard. Paul Sieswerda, the president of Gotham Whale, an organization that tracks marine life around the city, said the whale had been seen by New Yorkers who have captured photos and videos of it feeding and swimming. Mr. Sieswerda said that it was common to see humpbacks in the waters off New York at this time of year, as the whales finish up their feeding season and begin to think about heading south to breed in warmer waters. “The whales found this spot as a feeding ground,” he said. “Rather than go all the way up to Massachusetts and Maine, they’ve found a good feeding ground right here in New York. ” The Hudson whale, which Mr. Sieswerda nicknamed Gotham, seems to be healthy and has been exhibiting a behavior called lunge feeding, in which a whale swims forward, mouth agape, as it captures thousands of gallons of water. Inside the gulps, Mr. Sieswerda said, are likely sizable amounts of menhaden, a small forager fish that fishermen call bunker — a veritable fish buffet. A whale appearing in the Hudson is very rare, Mr. Sieswerda said, which is why he thinks this one is a solo traveler. But the whale still faces significant danger because it is swimming in waters. “It’s in a very busy area of activity, and it’s going up and down the Hudson, inside the harbor where big ships are,” Mr. Sieswerda said. “So far, it seems to be O. K. and, hopefully, can detect the boats. ” The Coast Guard has urged boaters and fishermen to slow down to avoid distressing the humpbacks, which can grow to 60 feet and can weigh around 40 tons. “When you have whales chasing the bunker, and fishermen chasing the stripers that chase the bunker, accidental interactions between whales and vessels can occur,” Jeff Ray, a deputy special agent with NOAA’s law enforcement division, said in the Coast Guard’s release. Kayakers and boaters should take extra care to steer at least 100 feet clear of any whales in the area, according to Ms. Goebel, the NOAA spokeswoman. Elsewhere, trouble can lurk for whales in shallow waters. About 80 miles from Manhattan, a humpback whale spent a week stuck in Moriches Bay, off the southern coast of Long Island, and over two days stuck in a sand bar in four feet of water. It was euthanized on Wednesday afternoon by a veterinarian with NOAA’s Marine Mammal Stranding Network, Ms. Goebel said. She added that NOAA will work with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to remove the whale’s body. Chuck Bowman, the president of the Riverhead Foundation, was among those who had helped to monitor the stranded whale while awaiting guidance from NOAA. “The good thing was 30 years ago you’d see maybe one whale off of Long Island a season,” Mr. Bowman said. “Now you see them all the time due to conservation efforts. ” But, he added, “You get a bigger population and you get a greater chance of things like this happening. ” | 0fake |
France to skip 2018 Winter Games if security not assured | PARIS/SEOUL (Reuters) - France s Winter Olympics team will not travel to the 2018 Games in South Korea if its security cannot be guaranteed, France s sports minister said on Thursday, the first major doubts by a participating nation about growing North Korean tensions. The games organizer said on Friday that it is closely monitoring the current geopolitical situation with the South Korean government, adding that safety is the top priority. Tensions in the region have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3, prompting global condemnation. North Korea s leader Kim Jong Un said on Friday the North will consider the highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history against the United States in response to U.S. President Donald Trump s threat to destroy the North. France s Sports Minister Laura Flessel told RTL radio that if the crisis deepened and our security cannot be assured, the French Olympics team will stay at home. But she added: We re not there yet. Participants in the Games - the first Winter Olympics hosted by an Asian nation outside Japan - had not previously raised safety concerns publicly. The games are scheduled for Feb 9-25 next year in Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world s most heavily armed border. The two countries remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. Safety and security is one of the most important aspects of Games preparations, Sung Baik-you, a spokesman for the organizing committee, said in a statement to Reuters on Friday. South Korea s President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday the country is pushing to ensure security at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. In a meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, Moon said South Korea is well aware of the concerns. The Japanese Olympic Committee said on Friday it is not considering the cancellation of its plans. We will continue to prepare in the same way as with other international competitions that we take part in, a spokeswoman for the committee said. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) said it was working with all the relevant authorities to ensure its athletes would be safe. Each host city presents a unique challenge from a security perspective, and, as is always the case, we are working with the organizers, the U.S. State Department and the relevant law enforcement agencies to ensure that our athletes, and our entire delegation, are safe, USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. The Chinese Olympic Committee said it had no immediate comment. The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), which has representatives in South Korea, said the safety of its team was always its main priority. The safety of our entire Canadian Olympic Team is always our main priority, no matter where the Games are held, the COC said in a statement emailed to Reuters. The Government of Canada does not currently have travel advisories in place for South Korea and recommends that Canadians exercise normal security precautions, which is the lowest of four risk levels. Australia, one of Asia s largest participants at recent Winter Games, is monitoring the situation. The safety of our team is of the highest priority but we are comfortable with the priority that the (International Olympic Committee) and the Org Comm are placing on security and safety of the Games and its participants, the Australian Olympic Committee said in a statement emailed to Reuters. We are relying on advice from DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and working with the Korean Ambassador and if their advice changes, we will advise our team accordingly but for the moment there is no suggestion that the Games will not go ahead or their safety is compromised. The chief of the International Ski Federation, Gian-Franco Kasper, dismissed any fears among athletes, saying the Pyeongchang Olympics would be the safest in the world . He conceded, however, that ticket sales among overseas visitors could be affected. The IOC has said it is not contemplating any Plan B for the Games. IOC President Thomas Bach said last week that considering any scenario other than holding the Olympics in South Korea could hamper diplomatic efforts. | 0fake |
Japan coast guard finds body of dead male suspected from North Korea | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan s Coast Guard found the body of a male and parts of a wooden boat suspected to be from North Korea on the coast of one of Japan s outlying islands on Saturday, an official said. The Coast Guard made the discovery around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday (2130 GMT on Friday) on Sado island, which is off the coast of Japan s northwestern prefecture of Niigata, a coast guard official said, declining to give his name. The guard also found a pack of cigarettes written in Korean and other personal belongings with Korean written on them near the body, the official said. The cause of death is still unknown, the official said. The discovery on Saturday marks the second time this month that parts of a wooden boat suspected to be from North Korea have washed up on the shores of Sado island, the official said. Finding the body will add to the increasing unease in Japan and South Korea over North Korea s nuclear arms program after U.S. President Donald Trump redesignated North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, allowing the U.S. government to levy additional sanctions. On Friday, police found eight North Korean men near a boat at a seaside marina in northern Japan. The men appeared to be fishermen whose boat had trouble, rather than defectors, the police said. Last week, the Coast Guard rescued three North Korean men on a capsized boat in the Sea of Japan who said they were fishermen and were later sent home aboard a North Korean vessel. A North Korean soldier dramatically defected to South Korea last week after being shot and wounded by his country s military as he dashed across the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone between the two countries. | 0fake |
British Woman’s Revolt Against High Heels Becomes a Cause in Parliament - The New York Times | LONDON — When Nicola Thorp was sent home for refusing to wear high heels to her job as a receptionist in London’s financial district, she did not cower in her sensible flats. She got even. Ms. Thorp, an actress, helped spur a popular revolt in Britain after she started a petition calling for a law that would prevent women from having to suffer from what she considered outdated and sexist dress codes at the office. In her case, she had been told that her shoes needed to be a minimum of two inches high. On Monday, more than two years after Ms. Thorp was sent home over her shoes, members of Parliament called on the government to tighten the rules so British women would never again be forced to wear high heels at the office. “What we found shocked us,” Helen Jones, a member of Parliament for the Labour Party and chairwoman of the petitions committee dealing with the issue, told fellow lawmakers. She said British women were enduring double standards in the workplace that belonged more in the 1850s than in modern times. Britain’s 2010 Equality Act prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of gender, age or sexual orientation. But Ms. Jones said at a parliamentary hearing on Monday that the law needed updating. She said that after Ms. Thorp came forward, dozens of women said they had been forced to wear high heels at work, sometimes until their feet bled or they could no longer walk. Invoking experts in podiatry and citing various studies, Ms. Jones said that women who wear high heels for long periods of time suffer from bunions, ankle sprains and a reduction of balance that lasts into old age. She said one woman who worked in retail had testified that she had been asked to unbutton her blouse over Christmas to increase sales. Others said their employers had required them to dye their hair blond, wear nail polish or constantly reapply makeup. Two parliamentary committees set up to investigate the issue concluded in January that Portico, the outsourcing firm that had insisted Ms. Thorp wear heels, had broken the law. (Portico rewrote its code almost immediately after the issue was raised by Ms. Thorp.) Ms. Thorp has become a popular hero of sorts in Britain and beyond, and dozens of professional women have posted photographs of themselves on Twitter, proudly wearing flats. This year, Samantha Power, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations, added her voice to the debate. “The next petition,” she wrote on Twitter, “should be one requiring men to wear high heels for a 9 hour shift before they insist women do. ” | 0fake |
WATCH: TRUMP YARD SIGN VANDALS Get Big Surprise When Homeowner Pulls Gun On Them | A Californian with a gun and a Trump sign in his front yard. Sounds like defending that sign could turn into a full-time job A San Diego man with a Donald Trump yard sign in front of his house confronted a group of would-be vandals with a rifle on Wednesday evening. The vandals panicked and dialed 911. Police questioned the resident, Taren Meacham, but did not arrest him. Local ABC News affiliate 10 News reports:At around 10 p.m., a neighbor reportedly witnessed a group of four friends who had been walking down a sidewalk in the 100 block of West Juniper Street meddling with the campaign sign. The friends appeared to have been drinking.Witnesses told San Diego police, the neighbor allegedly exited his home with a rifle and threatened the group using profanity. At one point he allegedly told them, I ve been waiting to use this. One of the people attempting to vandalize the sign recalled the event from her perspective:Ashton Ferejan says she panicked when he pointed the gun at her, her husband and friends, I kind of just screamed get back, get back, some of us yelled, my husband was like are you serious, put down the weapon, this is ridiculous, Ferejan said.Neighbors reportedly know Meacham, who owns a tattoo shop named Love and Terror, as a calm person. Evidently, however, he was prepared to defend his political preferences and his property.Meacham was recently featured by the San Diego Union-Tribune in a photo gallery of local Trump supporters:Vandalism of Trump yard signs is not new in Southern California. Recently, Breitbart News noted a case in which a Trump sign in Oceanside had been defaced with the words f*** you a-hole, with the message signed, a Mexican. Criminal charges are unlikely against Meecham, who did not actually fire his rifle in the incident. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
BILL CLINTON HAD SEX WITH COW DURING ‘COCAINE PARTY’, IOWA FARMER REVEALS | Email
Sioux Falls, IA | During his 1992 presidential campaign, Bill Clinton allegedly had sexual intercourse with cattle off of Tom Brady’s family dairy farm.
The family farm which was owned by Tom Brady’s father at the time, Willow Brady Jr., was often visited by the Clinton family when they were in the area.
“My dad and Bill Clinton’s step dad were like brothers. They often visited us on the holidays when I was a kid. Bill even knew the cows names by heart. That always surprised me” recalls the 64-year-old, third-generation dairy farmer.
“ My father was a strong Democratic party supporter all his life and a big Bill Clinton fan, so I never found the strength to tell him the truth before he passed away ”
Sex, drugs and cattle
During the 1992 Iowa caucus, the Clinton campaign stopped by for a night of festivities at the Brady’s farm, a night Tom Brady says he will never forget.
“The Clinton team came by and we drank a lot and all was merry before they started indulging in hard drugs, that’s when everything went wrong” he recalls, visibly distraught by the whole affair.
“I don’t know about all those stories about him sexually assaulting women, but I sure as hell know he assaulted one of our cows because I was there and I saw him do it with my own eyes and believe me, it’s not something I’d wish my worst enemy to live to see” he told local reporters.
“I’m sorry for the Clinton family, but as a God-fearing Christian, I just had to let the truth be known” he adds.
Bill Clinton has been personally accused publicly by seventeen women of sexual misconduct between 1972 and 1997. The former US President also admitted to having had an “inappropriate relationship” with Monica Lewinsky while she worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996. | 1real |
John Podesta Says Russian Spies Hacked His Emails to Sway Election - The New York Times | In his first remarks since WikiLeaks began releasing thousands of his hacked emails, John D. Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, said Tuesday that Russian intelligence officials intent on swaying the election to Donald J. Trump had been responsible for the illegal breach into his account. “I’ve been involved in politics for nearly five decades,” Mr. Podesta told reporters aboard the Clinton campaign plane. “This definitely is the first campaign that I’ve been involved with in which I’ve had to tangle with Russian intelligence agencies,” he added, “who seem to be doing everything that they can on behalf of our opponent. ” Without verifying the authenticity of the emails, Mr. Podesta said that he had spoken with the F. B. I. “as a victim” of hacking. The Obama administration, like Mr. Podesta, believes the Russian government has been trying to help Mr. Trump with its hacking, including the theft of emails of the Democratic National Committee this year. Mr. Podesta said Mr. Trump had “essentially adopted lock, stock and barrel” a foreign policy that would favor the interests of President Vladimir V. Putin. Mr. Podesta also cast blame on Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks and an avowed critic of Mrs. Clinton. He said WikiLeaks had strategically released the first batch of his emails Friday afternoon to distract attention from the damaging video that had just emerged of Mr. Trump making lewd comments about women. “It wasn’t any coincidence, I think, that within minutes of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape coming out, they decided that this was their countermove,” Mr. Podesta said. The hacked emails have not done much to help Mr. Trump in the polls, but they have proved to be a persistent distraction. Earlier on Tuesday, some newly released emails suggested that a senior Clinton campaign aide had been in touch with government officials about the release of her State Department emails, exchanges that prompted accusations of collusion from Republicans on Tuesday. The timing of the release of Mrs. Clinton’s State Department emails was critical information for her aides, who were devising strategy on how to respond to any story lines that could emerge. But the communication between the campaign and the Justice Department appeared to have simply been updates on a court case related to the emails, information that was publicly available. Brian Fallon, the campaign’s press secretary, told other campaign aides in May 2015 that he had just received information about a case from someone at the department. “DOJ just filed a briefing saying the gov’t proposes releasing HRC’s cache of emails in January 2016,” Mr. Fallon wrote. “Get out! ???” replied Cheryl D. Mills, a lawyer and longtime adviser to Mrs. Clinton. The correspondence came months before the F. B. I. which is part of the Justice Department, opened an investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s handling of classified emails at the State Department. In July, the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, said Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless” but recommended no charges, which the Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, accepted. Though the information Mr. Fallon passed on reflected no internal Justice Department thinking, the connection between a senior Clinton aide and the department stoked accusations that the Obama administration had conspired with Mrs. Clinton’s camp. The correspondence released Tuesday showed “a level of collusion which calls into question the entire investigation into her private server,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trump’s running mate, also brought it up at two events in Iowa. The day after Mr. Fallon’s exchange on the Justice Department’s court filing, he provided additional information to other campaign aides on the case. “DOJ folks inform me there is a status hearing in this case this morning,” he wrote. “So we could have a window into the judge’s thinking about this proposed production schedule as quickly as today. ” Mr. Fallon declined to comment on the exchanges. A Justice Department spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. | 0fake |
U.S. appoints new top official at Havana embassy as tensions flare | HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it had designated career diplomat Lawrence Gumbiner as the new chief of its Cuba embassy that has been at the center of a diplomatic crisis due to allegations of mysterious health attacks on its personnel. The previous charge d affaires, Scott Hamilton, left Cuba earlier this month after Washington ordered the evacuation of all non-essential staff and all relatives, in order to remain with his family. Gumbiner will arrive at a time of heightened tensions between the old Cold War foes. While the United States has not formally accused Cuba of carrying out what it says are attacks that have caused hearing loss and cognitive issues in its diplomats, U.S. President Donald Trump said last week Havana was responsible. [nS0N1MD016] In an interview with Reuters, Cuban government officials accused him this week of slandering their country. [nL2N1MZ2CH] The tensions over the attacks, some of which involved high-pitched sounds, came after Trump said in June he wanted to partially roll back the historic detente between the United States and Cuba, ordering tighter restrictions on travel and trade with the island. These have yet to be unveiled. [L3N1JD40J] Gumbiner, a lawyer, has served for the past three years as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru, according to the website of the U.S. embassy in Havana. Before that, he was deputy permanent representative at the U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States. He has previously held embassy positions in Bogota, Tel Aviv and San Jose. | 0fake |
Michigan governor's aides urged switch away from Flint River | DETROIT (Reuters) - Quality problems prompted two of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s top lawyers to urge that Flint be moved back to the Detroit water system just months after a decision to draw water supply from the Flint River, according to emails released on Friday. Several critics have called for Snyder to resign over concerns about the state’s poor handling of the crisis, and the governor said Friday he felt regret every day. Flint switched its water supply from Detroit to the Flint River in April 2014 in a bid to cut costs when the city was under a state-appointed emergency manager. While the city switched its water source back to Detroit in October 2015, corrosive water from the river had already leached lead from city pipes, posing a serious threat to public health. Snyder’s aides discussed Flint’s water quality problems as early as autumn 2014, with one calling the situation “downright scary,” about a year before the switch back to the Detroit system was finally made. The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News earlier reported about the emails, which were released by the governor’s office. “That’s where I’m kicking myself every day,” Snyder said after signing a $30 million supplemental bill to reimburse Flint residents for their water bills. “I wish I would have asked more questions.” Snyder, scheduled to testify to Congress on March 17, has repeatedly apologized for the state’s poor handling of the crisis. Liberal group Progress Michigan again called for Snyder to resign, citing the emails. “There’s no reasonable person who can believe at this point that every top adviser to Rick Snyder knew that there was an issue, but Snyder knew nothing,” said executive director Lonnie Scott, who also called for Snyder’s resignation. Valerie Brader, Snyder’s senior policy adviser, addressed problems over the quality of Flint River water in an email to the governor’s chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, and others on Oct. 14, 2014. She argued Flint should be returned to the Detroit water system, citing bacterial contamination and reduced quality that prompted General Motors to switch away from the river due to rusted car parts. Michael Godola, then the governor’s legal counsel, responded, calling the Flint River as a water source “downright scary.” On Friday, State Representative Sheldon Neeley of Flint asked Attorney General Bill Schuette for his legal opinion on whether an official withholding information that leads to death or harm can be charged criminally. | 0fake |
U.S. Presidential Candidates React To Orlando Shooting (TWEETS) | The nation is in mourning for the lives of 50 people that were taken during a mass shooting that took place Saturday night at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The shooter has been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Florida. The current number of people who are hospitalized with injuries from the shooting is 53. This makes Saturday night s massacre the largest mass shooting in United States history.The massacre is already being heavily politicized, with Fox hosts actually blaming Obama for the shooting. How they figure they can make that connection is anyone s guess.Here is how the presumptive presidential nominees reacted to news of the shooting on Twitter:Really bad shooting in Orlando. Police investigating possible terrorism. Many people dead and wounded. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016Woke up to hear the devastating news from FL. As we wait for more information, my thoughts are with those affected by this horrific act. -H Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 12, 2016Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders appeared on MSNBC s Meet The Press early Sunday morning where he called the shooting horrific and unthinkable while calling for people to come together to create solutions to help end these types of tragedies. He also called for the creation of a national instant background system that will help to keep dangerous individuals from getting these weapons."It's horrific, it's unthinkable," says @BernieSanders on #OrlandoShooting this morning on @MeetThePress. #MTP #Orlando NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) June 12, 2016Mateen s motivations for the shooting are still currently unknown. His father has spoken out publicly issuing an apology for his son s actions claiming that this had nothing to do with religion. Mateen s father says that he saw his son become very angry previously when he would see two men kissing.Investigators are trying to determine whether this shooting is a matter of domestic terrorism or international terrorism. Reports indicate that every person killed at the nightclub was shot with an assault rifle. It has been reported that Mateen was also carrying a handgun and some type of explosive device.Featured image from Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 1real |
PressTV-UK royals in Bahrain amid crackdown | UK royals in Bahrain amid crackdown Wed Nov 9, 2016 9:9AM Persian Gulf Britain's Prince Charles speaks to Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa upon arriving in the Bahraini capital Manama on November 8, 2016. (Photo by AP)
Britain’s Prince Charles and his wife Camilla have arrived in Bahrain on a three-nation tour of the Persian Gulf states amid strong criticism of London’s continued arms sales to the repressive regime in Manama.
The plane carrying the British royals touched down at Sakhir Air Base in central Bahrain on Tuesday on the last leg of the tour, which had already taken them to Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
They were received by Bahrain’s Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah and then taken to a nearby palace to meet with the country’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah.
Since 2011, the United Kingdom has sold 55 million dollars worth of arms to Bahrain. The year saw the eruption of peaceful anti-regime protests on the island.
London has been under fire by international rights organizations for selling military equipment to Manama, which is involved in a harsh and deadly crackdown on opposition activists.
It was reported late last month that the UK will open a massive permanent military base in Bahrain and deploy warships to the Persian Gulf. A Bahraini protester shouts slogans during clashes with regime forces in the village of Sitra, south of Manama, on February 12, 2015. (Photo by AFP)
The military base, which is the first such facility being opened by Britain in 40 years in the Persian Gulf region, will be launched next month, Britain’s Express newspaper reported.
Britain will station around 600 military forces at the Royal Navy Facility and will deploy its warships to patrol the surrounding waters and guard oil and gas shipments in the waters.
When Britain kicked off the project in 2014, Defense Secretary Michael Fallon described it as “a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy’s footprint” in the Persian Gulf. The project has bypassed the parliament.
According to data released by the UK Trade and Investment in September, the UK government has become the world’s second biggest arms dealer, with bulk of its weapons fueling deadly conflicts in the Middle East. Loading ... | 1real |
U.S. House Intelligence chairman questions leaks behind Flynn resignation: CNN | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said he is concerned about leaks regarding Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, and his contacts with Russia that promoted Flynn’s resignation, CNN reported on Tuesday. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters that he wants to look into the leaks regarding Flynn and his December call with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office, according to CNN. | 0fake |
‘How Do I Get Back Home?’ Iranians Turned Away From Flights to U.S. - The New York Times | TEHRAN — As Iranians woke on Saturday to the news that none of them would be able to enter the United States for at least 90 days, on the orders of President Trump, panic reigned. They were turned back from flights to the United States in Tehran and in the major transfer hubs of Istanbul and Dubai. Some of those who arrived in the United States after midnight, when the decree went into effect, were held or deported, rights groups and airline representatives said. No one, not passengers, airline representatives or even United States border control officials, seemed to know how to interpret the executive order that went into effect at midnight on Friday. Under the new policy, refugees, immigrants and almost anyone from seven countries deemed to be hotbeds of terrorism are banned from the United States for 90 days, pending a review of policies. Officials are just interpreting the directive by themselves, said one representative for an international airline who was based in Tehran. He said the airline did not know if Iranians could fly to the United States or not. On Saturday, three international airlines shuttling passengers between Iran and the United States — Emirates, Lufthansa and Qatar Airways — had stopped allowing Iranians with visas or even permanent residence cards to board their planes. The Qatar Airways office in Tehran confirmed that all Iranian passengers without United States passports were stopped from flying to the United States on Friday evening and sent back to Iran. In Istanbul, during a stopover on Saturday, passengers reported that security officers had entered a plane after everybody boarded and ordered a young Iranian woman and her family to leave the aircraft. Holders of green cards, which confer the right to live and work indefinitely in the United States, received conflicting information about whether or not they would be permitted to return to the United States. But on Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security clarified the executive order, saying it applied even to permanent residents from the seven countries named in the ban: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. “It will bar green card holders,” Gillian Christensen, the Department of Homeland Security’s acting spokeswoman, told Reuters. Many were blindsided by the decree while on vacation in Iran. “How do I get back home now?” said Daria Zeynalia, a green card holder who was visiting family in Iran. He had rented a house and leased a car and would be eligible for citizenship in November. “What about my job? If I can’t go back soon, I’ll lose everything,” he said. It is unclear how many Iranians have green cards, but experts say the number runs into the hundreds of thousands. In an online survey tracking entry challenges, two out of 112 passengers holding green cards said they were not allowed into the United States, but the reasons were unclear. Card holders can be barred, for instance, if they owe back taxes. Others spent years preparing to study in the United States only to see their plans abruptly thwarted on Friday. About 4, 000 Iranians are granted study visas to attend American universities each year, often after a long and complicated process that can take years. Shadi Heidarifar, a philosophy student just admitted to New York University, said in a message on Twitter that she had spent three years trying to apply to universities in the United States. “I had to work to save money, gather documents. The application fees were so expensive that a whole family could live for a month” on them, Ms. Heidarifar wrote. When she was accepted recently, she was over the moon. “But now my entire future is destroyed in one second. ” | 0fake |
U.S. House to stop using public funds for harassment settlements: speaker | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday that Congress was working on a package of reforms that would prohibit using taxpayer money for settlements in sexual harassment claims lodged against lawmakers’ offices. “That’s among the things we’re working on right now,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in an interview with Wisconsin radio station WISN a week after three lawmakers said they were stepping down after sexual harassment or misconduct claims.A wave of sexual misconduct allegations has emerged in recent weeks against high-profile figures in journalism, entertainment and politics. Democratic Representative John Conyers resigned after reports he had used public funds to settle a woman’s claim. Conyers acknowledged his office had settled with a former staffer over harassment allegations, but denied wrongdoing. The congressional office that handles employment disputes also said it had paid settlements on two claims involving sex discrimination allegations and one sexual harassment accusation since 2013. Politico reported that the sexual harassment settlement, which amounted to $84,000, was made on behalf of Texas Republican Representative Blake Farenthold. In a statement after he reached a settlement agreement in 2015, Farenthold denied engaging in any wrongdoing. | 0fake |
Antidoping Officials Get an Earful From Congress: ‘What a Broken System’ - The New York Times | WASHINGTON — Federal lawmakers excoriated international sports officials on Tuesday for what they called a bungled response to the Russian doping scandal, with delayed investigations, insufficient sanctions and a lack of interest in rooting out cheating that has tarnished the Olympic brand. During a hearing called by a House subcommittee, Democrats and Republicans chastised representatives of the International Olympic Committee and the World Agency, the regulator of drugs in sports. “What a broken system,” Representative Greg Walden, Republican of Oregon and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said, asking why WADA — to which the United States is the largest national contributor — took years to act on the multiple tips it had received from within Russia, pursuing investigations only after news media reports. “It’s been a quagmire,” Mr. Walden said, criticizing officials’ “indecisive and inconsistent” responses to revelations that some 1, 000 Russian athletes were implicated in doping schemes. Representatives of WADA and the I. O. C. spoke little, weathering relentless criticism with few rebuttals. “At these sort of things, you’re always a little frustrated you can’t say more,” Richard Budgett, the I. O. C. ’s medical and scientific director, said as he prepared to depart. Rob Koehler, the deputy director general of WADA, defended the organization’s response to the scandal, pointing to the independent investigations it had ultimately commissioned, which amassed evidence of the vast scope of Russia’s cheating that the I. O. C. and others are continuing to review. WADA’s president, Craig Reedie, is a member of the I. O. C. until August, he was a top executive with that organization as well. “If you continue to have sport overseeing investigations, overseeing compliance, overseeing itself — it’s the fox guarding the henhouse,” Travis Tygart, the United States’ top antidoping official, told the subcommittee. Mr. Tygart invoked an array of global reforms that he and a coalition of other national antidoping organizations had proposed in August. Most of all, he advocated making the global antidoping regulator more independent of sports organizations, empowering it to be an aggressive policeman. The United States Olympic Committee, which is politicking to host the 2024 Summer Games, had argued against holding a hearing last year, when Mr. Tygart and antidoping authorities from more than a dozen other nations were pressuring the I. O. C. to ban Russia from the 2016 Games after learning the nation’s antidoping lab chief had tampered with scores of urine samples at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Representative Tim Murphy — Republican of Pennsylvania and the chairman of the subcommittee on oversight and investigations, which called the hearing — said Tuesday that the inquiry was justified and that Congress’s concern went beyond its $2 million annual contribution to the global regulator. “It isn’t just the money the United States puts into this,” Mr. Murphy said. “If it takes money to motivate things, fine, but the real reason is: I want sports to be fair. ” He said he also considered doping a public health issue. Testifying alongside the sports and antidoping authorities were two American Olympic medalists, the swimmer Michael Phelps and the Adam Nelson, who told personal anecdotes. Some lawmakers took photographs of the athletes before and after the charged discussion. Mr. Phelps, the world’s most decorated Olympian, said he did not believe that he had ever competed in a clean field, and he echoed Mr. Tygart’s calls for making the antidoping regulator more independent. Mr. Nelson — who inherited a gold medal roughly a decade after he had competed, once a reporter had informed him that a competitor had been disqualified for doping — said he wanted to ensure officials would not “sweep this under the rug. ” He was presented with his gold medal in the food court of an Atlanta airport, a fact numerous representatives seized on, arguing for a ceremony to honor the dozens of athletes who have retroactively won medals because of the rash of doping disqualifications over the last year. Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, drew parallels between Tuesday’s proceeding and hearings called in the early 2000s by the same subcommittee regarding the Salt Lake Olympics corruption scandal, in which American officials had bribed I. O. C. members to win the right to host the 2002 Games. After reading excerpts from an I. O. C. letter on the Russian doping scandal released last week, Ms. DeGette said, “This is the same kind of gobbledygook we got from the I. O. C. then. ” In the letter, addressed to various sports organizations, the I. O. C. had sought to differentiate between calling Russia’s widespread cheating “ ” and “institutional,” a major point of contention for Russian sports officials who have emphasized that President Vladimir V. Putin and his inner circle were not involved in the coordinated cheating. “They’re looking at angels dancing on the head of a pin, and I don’t even know what they’re talking about,” Ms. DeGette said. “The international sports community needs to realize we’re dealing with Russia and the honor system is simply not going to be enough. ” | 0fake |
null | 330 American soldiers are causing the Russians to prepare for nuclear war???
BULLCRAP!
this is about getting the American public to start yammering about the potential for nuclear war so the president can reduce our number of nukes again
I really loathe President Obama but I absolutely hate ball-less Americans | 1real |
WATCH: COWARDLY ANTIFA THUGS Surround Afghanistan Veteran At Boston Free Speech Rally…Scream In His Face: “F*ck Off Nazi Scum!” | ***WARNING***This video is very disturbing!Try to imagine this brave man who voluntarily enlisted in our US military, traveled halfway around the world to Afghanistan where he risked his life to defend our nation against some of the most evil people on the planet, only to come home to some of the most evil people in America shouting, F*ck off Nazi scum! in his face. The saddest part of this video is watching the Afghanistan veteran actually attempt to have dialogue with these anti-American jack-asses, who are likely only there to collect a paycheck from George Soros.The crime of attending the free-speech rally in and of itself, was enough to anger these anti-Americans, but the moment this veteran admitted to supporting President Trump, the angry Alt-Left crowd began to come unhinged. Would this video of an Afghanistan veteran, who appears to be all by himself in a large group of violent, Soros funded Antifa thugs, be splashed all over every network in America if he was verbally assaulted by this group of masked cowards for defending Barack Obama during his presidency? If we didn t know better, we d almost think there was a double standard in America.Antifa assembled at the entry point of the free speech rally. pic.twitter.com/FaXVdnbfD0 Kirk and Callahan (@KirkAndCallahan) August 19, 2017There is no place for these types of violent, masked cowards in America. President Trump was correct to not defend these Antifa thugs, who ve been laying low in their parent s basements after they got pummeled by conservatives who fought back against their attacks in California. | 1real |
Donald Trump Just Changed His Twitter Header And The Whole Internet Is Making Fun Of Him (TWEETS) | Donald Trump spent Monday pretty much just making an ass of himself on Twitter. After he attempted to intimidate Sally Yates and tweeted numerous lies about the hearing later in the day, one might assume The Donald would take a break. Instead, he took one of those aforementioned lies and blasted it across the top of his Twitter profile.The header, as you can see, features the whitest room of people you have ever seen all giving a thumbs up and because he s a narcissist one of his own quotes, which is a lie: Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is no evidence of collusion w/ Russia and Trump. Naturally, Twitter is having a lot of fun with this:Never really believed there was collusion between Trump & Russia.. until he just put that twitter header up. Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) May 9, 2017They're going to have to rename the Streisand Effect. pic.twitter.com/8PowDCXIaP Tom McKay (@thetomzone) May 9, 2017The "mission accomplished" banner of Twitter headers pic.twitter.com/tSuObDDOSl Rebecca Berg (@rebeccagberg) May 9, 2017Wow. Trump's new header is something else. pic.twitter.com/Ha2OKF41Lj CAFE (@cafedotcom) May 9, 2017Finally saw James Baldwin doc "I am Not Your Negro," if you are looking for an explanation of Trump's new header pic. Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) May 9, 2017"Getting a staffer to Photoshop your tweet denying collusion with Russia into your banner image" is untold levels of Not Mad pic.twitter.com/M2kUZkkG2W Patrick Monahan (@pattymo) May 9, 2017Not only did the unshakeable #SallyYates take two sleazy senators to school her testimony made Trump turn his Twitter page into a SNL skit pic.twitter.com/b2b1hSPVkn Mel C #DemForce (@MDemforce) May 9, 2017Gee, Trump put up an I-didn't-commit-treason Twitter banner and his entire account exploded. Winter Maiden (@Winter_Maiden) May 9, 2017@Impeach_D_Trump I had to check it out & sure enough, the idiot has blazoned that fallacy across the head of his Twitter page. Desperation ain't pretty Marcia La R sistance (@MarciaBunney) May 9, 2017Lol If Trump has to put that as his fucking Twitter layout you know somethings up. https://t.co/vTG2gMpP0h ? i heart u ? (@memattieni) May 9, 2017The amazing-or not-thing is that this is *not* what Clapper said. The Twitter banner of POTUS is literally (& seriously) a false statement. https://t.co/6ICn3pIVfw David Corn (@DavidCornDC) May 9, 2017I wonder what Twitter thinks about @realDonaldTrump putting its logo in his header pic.twitter.com/bXkMVYYeU0 Farhad Manjoo ? (@fmanjoo) May 9, 2017Clapper did not in any way, shape or form, confirm that there is no evidence of collusion, no matter what The Donald s Twitter banner says. Clapper explained that he was not aware of any evidence demonstrating collusion, but that he was unaware of the FBI investigation into the administration s dealings with Russia until Director James Comey announced its existence publicly in March. That s a far cry from no evidence. The real story the one Trump doesn t want you to know is that Sally Yates confirmed under oath that she warned Donald Trump General Mike Flynn was compromised 18 days before Trump did anything about it. We believed that Gen. Flynn was compromised with respect to the Russian, Yates said. To state the obvious, you don t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians. And she s right.Featured image via screengrab | 1real |
Tunisia parliament approves controversial amnesty for Ben Ali-era corruption | TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia s parliament on Wednesday approved a controversial law granting amnesty to officials accused of corruption during the rule of autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, triggering angry protests from the opposition and activists outside. Opposition lawmakers sang the national anthem and shouted slogans before the session was temporarily suspended. Outside, dozens of demonstrators chanted This law will not pass and Whitewash corruption . The law was approved by 117 deputies. The opposition withdrew from the session in protest against the insistence of the ruling coalition on passing the law in an extraordinary session. I congratulate you on the return of the dictatorial state and reconciliation with the corrupt, Ahmed Seddik a deputy of the Popular Front said. Tunisians will not forgive you , he added. After months of protests, the bill was amended from an original draft which would have also granted amnesty to corrupt businessmen. As it stands, they will be liable to prosecution for crimes committed during Ben Ali s 24-year rule. Witnesses said police beat protesters who had shouted slogans against the President and the ruling parties Ennahda and Nidaa Tounes which supported the law. The opposition no longer has a pretext, they resorted to unacceptable methods. They rejected democracy , Sofian Toubel a lawmaker of Nidaa Tounes said. Critics of the so-called Economic Reconciliation Law say it is a step back from the spirit of Tunisia s 2011 revolution to oust Ben Ali, who fled after weeks of protests against corruption and inequality. This law is an advanced stage of counter-revolution, opposition lawmaker Ammar Amroussia said. But government officials say the law helps to turn the page on the past, improves the climate for investment and gives confidence to the administration and officials. The time has come to stop the isolation of those officials who could contribute to the building of the new Tunisia, said Mohamed Souf of the governing Nidaa Tounes party. We must reconcile, as happened in South Africa and Rwanda. The bill was proposed by President Beji Caid Essebsi, himself a former Ben Ali official, and sent to parliament in 2015. But debate was postponed after criticism that the original bill benefited business elites tied to the government. At Wednesday s session, tensions flared between the ruling coalition and the opposition lawmakers, who said the Supreme Judicial Council had not yet given its answer after being consulted by the parliament on the legality of the bill. Despite the consensus between secular and Islamist parties that helped the country s transition toward democracy, the bill has divided Tunisians between those who want to draw a line under the past and those who say they must deal with past graft. Since the 2011 uprising, Tunisia has been held up by Western partners as a model of democracy for the region. Economic progress has lagged, though, and corruption remains a major problem in the North African state. | 0fake |
Bob Dole on Ted Cruz: 'Nobody likes him' | Bob Dole said Wednesday that Ted Cruz at the top of the GOP ticket would mean "wholesale losses" for the party in Washington and across the country.
“I don’t know how he’s going to deal with Congress,” Dole said in an interview with The New York Times. “Nobody likes him.”
Dole, a former Kansas senator, was the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1996.
Donald Trump would "probably work with Congress," though, Dole mused, because he's "kind of a deal maker."
Dole characterized Cruz as an "extremist" unwilling to work with his own party. The Times' Maggie Haberman notes that Dole's comments reflect a larger tension that establishment Republicans feel with Cruz, who portrays himself on the campaign trail as their antithesis.
Last month, Dole told MSNBC that he might oversleep and not vote next November were Cruz the Republican nominee.
Dole also lamented Wednesday that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor he supports for president, still "needs to break out," and that moderate Republicans seem to have had a tougher time reaching voters this cycle.
Should Hillary Clinton take on Cruz in a general election, she'd win easily, he said.
So who could stop Cruz from getting the nomination?
"I think it's Trump," Dole told the Times.
A Cruz aide sought to capitalize on Dole's take on the race by branding him as an "establishment icon" who favored Trump over the Texas senator — an effort to cast Cruz as the true outsider candidate in the field. | 0fake |
Cruz's immigration gambit | A verdict in 2017 could have sweeping consequences for tech startups. | 0fake |
Panama recalls EU ambassador over tax haven list | PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Panama recalled its ambassador to the EU from Brussels for consultations after the Central American country was included on a European Union blacklist of countries deemed as tax havens, the government said on Wednesday. European Union finance ministers adopted a blacklist of 17 jurisdictions deemed tax havens on Tuesday, in an unprecedented step to counter worldwide tax avoidance, although they did not agree on financial levies for the listed countries. Given the unfortunate incorporation of the country in this discriminatory list, the Republic of Panama has decided to call its Ambassador to the European Union, Dario Chiru, to assess the steps to be followed moving forward, the government said in a statement. The list also included American Samoa, Bahrain, Barbados, Grenada, Guam, South Korea, Macau, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Namibia, Palau, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and United Arab Emirates (UAE). The government of the Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago said on Wednesday that it soon would take two bills to parliament to reform its tax codes. Passage of those bills could help it get removed from the EU blacklist, the government said. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago shares the goals of the EU with respect to fighting tax abuse and reassures that we will act with alacrity on this matter, the country s attorney general said in a statement | 0fake |
Despite expected U.S. troop hike, no end in sight to Afghan war | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While President Donald Trump opened the door on Monday to beefing up U.S. forces in Afghanistan, he provided few details on how sending more troops will hasten a conclusion to America’s longest war. “There is no quick fix to this problem,” said Bill Roggio, an insurgency expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based policy institute, speaking before Trump’s speech. “Things will continue looking bleak for some time.” In his approximately 30-minute nationally televised address, Trump said he would “expand authority” for U.S. commanders to target militant networks that “sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan.” That paves the way to an increase in the 8,400 U.S. troop level in Afghanistan and broader rules of engagement as part of his plan to end a military conflict that began in 2001, U.S. officials said. But he declined to say how many more U.S. soldiers will be deployed or how long the U.S. force will be there. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables” would guide the duration of U.S. military involvement, he said. His effective embrace of an open-ended U.S. deployment contrasts with the expectations of his political base that he would extract the United States from a war estimated to have cost more than $700 billion and claimed the lives of more than 2,400 U.S. service members. But Trump, who has railed against the war for years, finds himself boxed in. Taliban advances are raising the specter of a repeat of 1996, when Islamist militants seized power and provided al Qaeda with a sanctuary in which to plot the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks in New York and Washington. Moreover, the Afghan government is plagued by ethnic and political rifts and corruption and controls less than 60 percent of the country, similar circumstances that paved the way for the Taliban’s 1996 takeover. “The choice is between losing and not losing. Winning really isn’t an option,” said James Dobbins, who served as the U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan during the presidency of Barack Obama and is now a senior fellow at the RAND Corporation. “He (Trump) can lose quickly by withdrawing, he can lose slowly by standing pat” Dobbins said, adding that Trump “could not lose” by marginally increasing the U.S. force. The ostensible goal of Trump’s strategy is to help Afghan security forces reverse Taliban advances and create a military stalemate that eventually would compel rebel leaders to agree to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. Yet Trump indicated that diplomacy would take a back seat to military operations, saying that, “Some day, after an effective military effort, perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban.” Sending more U.S. troops could “buy time for the Afghan government to increase its legitimacy and gain support for the Afghans, which will help them negotiate an end of the conflict,” said Scott Worden, an expert with the U.S. Institute for Peace. But Worden, also speaking before Trump’s speech, said more U.S. troops “alone are not going to outright defeat the Taliban. The military components of the strategy have to be coupled with an equal - if not greater - emphasis on managing the politics of Afghanistan and the politics of the region.” Obama tried and failed with what basically was the same approach. He presided over a far larger effort that at one point involved some 100,000 U.S. troops, considerable airpower, scores of CIA drone strikes on extremist sanctuaries in Pakistan, and billions of dollars for reconstruction and democratization programs. Obama also dedicated enormous diplomatic energy to ending the war, appointing a special envoy to coordinate negotiations. Not only has Trump eliminated that post, but the administration has proposed slashing the State Department budget by about 30 percent and has left scores of senior posts vacant. Obama freed five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay and allowed the rebels to open an office in Doha. The Taliban freed captured U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl, but they refused to be drawn into talks. Trump signaled a tougher U.S. approach to Pakistan, warning that while it had “much to gain” by cooperating on Afghanistan, it would have to immediately stop “harboring” Islamist militants “who target” U.S. troops and officials. But again, he provided no details of how he planned to convince Pakistan to do so. U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of failing to pursue top leaders of the Taliban and the allied Haqqani network and to end sanctuaries and support for the extremists from elements of the powerful military and army-run intelligence agency, an allegation Islamabad denies. | 0fake |
Spain's Rajoy sacks Catalan government, calls snap election | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain on Friday sacked Catalonia s regional government, dissolved the Catalan parliament and called a snap election in the region for Dec. 21, in a bid to draw a line under Spain s worst political crisis in 40 years. We believe it is urgent to listen to Catalan citizens, to all of them, so that they can decide their future and nobody can act outside the law on their behalf, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a televised speech. | 0fake |
Italian government gets economy bill through Senate despite friction | ROME (Reuters) - The Italian parliament approved the government s latest economic forecasts on Wednesday, but the Senate vote exposed deep divisions on the political left that could complicate the drafting of the 2018 budget. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni s coalition won two votes in the upper house on the Treasury s Economic and Financial Document (DEF), even though parliamentarians with the leftist Mdp party walked out of one of the ballots. The Mdp was formed earlier this year following a schism in the Democratic Party (PD), with a small group of left-wingers accusing PD leader Matteo Renzi of shifting the ruling party too far to the right and shunning its Socialist roots. National elections are due in early 2018, and political jockeying is on the increase as Italy s myriad parties seek to establish clearly defined identities ahead of the vote. The Mdp, backed by former prime minister Massimo D Alema, is particularly anxious to put clear water between itself and Renzi s PD, seizing on the DEF to push its demands for more money to be spent on health care and job creation. We have sent a political signal, said Mdp senator Federico Fornaro. Gentiloni, who does not have a clearly defined majority in the upper house, was saved any embarrassment thanks to the backing of 12 Senators from the center-right ALA group, which is headed by Denis Verdini, previously close to former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Centre-left politicians said the Mdp was trying to smear Renzi by portraying him as a rightwinger. The question of relations between the Mdp and the government is tied to its competition with the PD ahead of the elections, said senior centrist politician Mario Catania. The point is that the Mdp is following D Alema s line and pushing for the downfall of Renzi. The government has to present its budget by Oct. 20, giving parliament until the end of the year to approve the package in what could be the last major act of the legislature. Gentiloni hopes to get the backing of the Mdp to guarantee smooth passage through both houses. The DEF hiked the 2018 growth forecast to 1.5 percent from a previous target of 1.0 percent, giving the Treasury room to present a more expansive budget than originally expected. The health system is an area where we will weigh up measures to improve it and make it more efficient, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told the Senate on Wednesday in an apparent nod to Mdp demands. | 0fake |
The Women of ‘Girls’ and Protest Whack-a-Mole - The New York Times | Two hundred thousand Uber users deleted the app from their phones after the company supported its New York drivers’ making trips out of Kennedy Airport while taxi companies refused to drive in protest of the Trump administration’s travel ban. From some, it was a moment to switch to rival companies like Lyft, which recently pledged a million dollars to the American Civil Liberties Union. But what does switching from one Silicon Valley corporation to another really accomplish? Aren’t they all basically the same? “If you’re going to ban Uber, throw your iPhone in the trash, delete your Facebook account, stop using Twitter,” Jenna says on this week’s episode of Still Processing. “All of these companies are, in some way, supporting this administration. ” As Wesley puts it: “It’s a protest . ” Also, with the final season of “Girls” beginning on Sunday night on HBO, we take a moment to talk about the show’s legacy. And after we talk about the show, we talk to it, with excerpts from Jenna’s recent conversation with the cast: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Zosia Mamet and Jemima Kirke. They discuss the show’s early lack of diversity, why “Silicon Valley” gets off easy and what it’s like to have the public completely conflate actors and the characters they play. We’ve got excerpts! Finally, we play a new game that we hope to come back to. It requires zero expertise, just lots and lots of speculation. From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for “Still Processing” and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. | 0fake |
CNN Host STUNNED As Trump Supporter Says Voter Fraud Got Obama Elected (VIDEO) | As Donald Trump and his supporters continue to live in a frightening amount of denial that they are losing this election, their moronic claims of the election being rigged is only getting louder. Their cries have gotten more desperate as Trump s campaign continues to further unravel thanks to a leaked audio tape and numerous allegations of sexual assault against Trump.CNN s Jake Tapper recently had a mind numbing experience with a Trump supporter on The Lead, when Trump spokesperson Boris Epshteyn actually tried to say that President Barack Obama won the 2008 election because of voter fraud in North Carolina. Building upon Trump s claims of a rigged system , Epshteyn said: What Mr. Trump and our campaign are talking about is the rigged system in two ways. One, in terms of the media. 96 percent of donations, contributions in this cycle by the media are going to the Clinton campaign. Epshteyn didn t get very far before Tapper cut him off and said: Boris, That s like from like restaurant that s like from TV critics and restaurant reviewers. That s not from me! That s not from Chris Cuomo or campaign staff or anybody covering the election. But Epshteyn didn t care how idiotic his argument was and kept right on, spewing exaggerated numbers just like his boss: Numbers by Pew show that 40 percent of people who are not citizens are registered to vote. People who are dead voting in Colorado. Those are the kind of instances, the kind of voter fraud, we want to make sure that does not happen.Barack Obama may have won that Barack Obama may have won in 2008 in North Carolina due to illegal voting. And this is where Epshteyn went too damn far. Guest Angela Rye, who was standing beside him, blurted out Oh my God in disbelief, and Tapper jumped in to dispute this insanity. Tapper fired back: Boris, where are you getting that from? Barack Obama won in North Carolina because of voter fraud? Rye laughed at the bizarre claim, but Epshteyn wasn t deterred. He continued: Look at the Washington Post story saying 5 percent of voting in North Carolina may have been by non-citizens who shouldn t have been voting and swung North Carolina to Mr. Obama to President Obama because of how tight the race in North Carolina was in 2008. The segment then erupted in chaos as Rye and Epshteyn sparred over Trump s recent sexual assault allegations and this ridiculous voter fraud claim. Tapper just looked on, almost too stunned to do anything. You can watch this ridiculous segment below:Featured image is a screenshot | 1real |
Viral Video Captures The Importance Of Investing In Children | Released in September 2013, this short video about the power of Giving instantly went viral. Once you ve seen it, you ll understand why.Produced by TrueMove H in Thailand, the three-minute video reminds us of how taking care of others comes full circle, touching our own lives in ways that we cannot begin to foresee.It s especially relevant in today s political climate, where the conversation is too often dominated by Ayn-Rand-worshiping right-wing politicians, accompanied by a choir of religious leaders who feed the masses a poison concoction of fear and hate, served up in a glittering bowl of egotism and self-righteousness.At the beginning of the video, a young boy has been caught stealing. An outraged, unmerciful shopkeeper is in the process of shoving him around in the street, screaming and ranting as she does so.But the owner of a nearby cafe intervenes. He gives the shopkeeper money out of his own pocket to cover what the boy stole. He then sends his young daughter into his own store for vegetable soup, after learning the boy s mother is sick.For those who haven t seen how the video ends, watch it below, courtesy of Elon Iva on YouTube.(*You may want to have a box of tissues nearby.)In a larger context, the story told on this video is one of social responsibility.For those on the right who are constantly asking Why should I have to Whether we re talking about giving to the poor or investing in public education, there s a message in this video that we all should pay attention to.The right promotes the false idea that a society full of Ayn-Rand individualists can be healthy and functional. According to that way of thinking, other people s lives aren t our responsibility. We don t need to invest healthcare or support programs that enable the freeloading poor. The only person that matters is me, myself and I. What the right consistently fails to understand is that when you live in a society, every person is connected in some way or another.The video especially speaks to the need to invest in public education. While it was once seen as a Christian mission to make sure that every child has equal access to education, today s right wing Christians view education as an evil. Yet, just a few decades ago the Christian church believed that every child should learn to read and write. How else can a child read the Bible?But the church is now a corporation, and as we can clearly see by examining Christian corporations involved in things like educaAs the video shows, investing in a child s future is anything but a waste. It s an investment in our own future, and in the future of our society.The school to prison pipeline that we ve set up in the United States is costing our society hundreds of billions of dollars every single year. Instead of investing in the future of our country s most vulnerable citizens, we cut funding for the programs that benefit kids the most.At the same time we create more and more laws, with harsher and harsher punishments, pouring more and more of our tax dollars into the prison industrial complex, while taking more and more away from public education.What we see in our society today is the result of our decade s long experiment with right wing tough on crime policies and Ayn-Randian ideals of individualism. It doesn t work.We have fewer and fewer students graduating with the skills needed to become doctors or Scientists or mathematicians. The number of students enrolling in college is also consistently declining. At the same time, every year in the U.S. more than two million young people enter into the juvenile justice system. The majority of these criminals, 95 percent, are not arrested for violent crimes.Last week teachers working for the Detroit Public School System released shocking pictures of the deplorable conditions inside the city s schools. If we need a vision of America under the influence of right wing ideology, we can look to Detroit to see the future.Educating and caring for children used to be a priority to Americans. But that system has been replaced with a new system which prefers mass incarceration.This video is an important reminder that when we invest in our society s children, somewhere down the road we will reap the benefits. On the other hand, when we throw children away because of petty crimes, we re throwing away possibilities that we may not even be able to imagine.*Featured image credit: video scree capture TrueMove H via YouTube | 1real |
Kremlin-backed broadcaster launches French language news channel in wary Paris | PARIS (Reuters) - The Kremlin-funded Russian broadcaster RT was due to launch its French language news channel on Monday night amid heavy suspicion by the government and President Emmanuel Macron who has dubbed it an organ of propaganda . Macron has led official criticism of RT, formerly known as Russia Today , and openly accused it of sowing disinformation about him via its website and social media during the presidential election earlier this year which he won. RT has denied the allegations and RT France s chief executive Xenia Fedorova, speaking at the channel s new offices in a western Paris suburb, again brushed off criticism, saying that RT stood for news not covered by mainstream media . The channel was being cold-shouldered by Macron and the channel had still not been granted accreditation to cover news conferences inside the French presidential Elysee palace, Fedorova said on Monday a few hours before the channel was due to start broadcasting. There was just one example of when we actually managed to visit. That was actually during the Trump visit to Paris, she added, referring to the visit by the U.S. president last in July. A spokesman for the French government said last week that the current administration was concerned by encroachment on freedom of expression but highlighted that RT was owned by a foreign power. Fedorova brushed off the remarks, citing other well-known international news channels that receive public funding such as BBC World, France 24 or Al Jazeera. RT stands for news that are not covered by the mainstream media, she said. We will keep the platform (open) to perspectives and opinions that are either not covered or silenced. RT France has planned a budget of 20 million euros ($24 million) for its launch and aims to recruit a total of 150 people by the end next year. By comparison, BFM TV, France s number one news channel, started with 15 million euros and now has an annual budget of about 60 million euros. RT s first international channel was launched in December 2005. The network broadcasts in English, Arabic and Spanish and its programs are viewed by 70 million people in 38 countries, it says. The landscape for news channels is already crowded in France, with four round-the-clock local news channels. Unlike its rivals, RT will not reach all French households via the digital terrestrial television technology. Rather, it can be viewed only online or by subscribers of Iliad s broadband services. Bouygues Telecom is also due to distribute RT France from the end of next February. The two biggest French telecom operators, Orange and Altice s SFR Group, are still in discussions with RT France, the firms said, underscoring the low audience level that RT is likely to have in its first few days. Russia s international news outlets have come under the spotlight since 2016 after being accused of meddling in the U.S. presidential election. Russia has denied interfering in the election. In October, Twitter accused RT and Russian news agency Sputnik of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and banned them from buying ads on its network. ($1 = 0.8472 euros) | 0fake |
Hundreds of thousands in Israel mourn 104-year-old ultra-Orthodox rabbi | BNEI BRAK, Israel (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews crammed into the streets of a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday to mourn a 104-year-old rabbi who had significantly influenced a succession of Israeli coalition governments. Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman led a council of sages that controlled the small Degel Hatorah lawmakers faction, part of the United Torah Judaism party, which has often held the balance of power in Israel. In particular, Shteinman broke with tradition by giving tacit consent to the enlistment of religious soldiers in the first ultra-Orthodox unit set up by the Israeli military. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government includes ultra-Orthodox political parties, said the Jewish people had lost a central beacon of spirit, heritage and morality . Special buses and trains ferried mourners to Bnei Brak, a religious town on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Police estimated that several hundred thousand people gathered for the funeral procession, dressed in traditional black ultra-Orthodox garb. Shteinman, born in what is now Belarus, had led his community of Lithuanian-rooted ultra-Orthodox Jews since 2012. | 0fake |
Former assistant accuses exiled Chinese tycoon of rape in lawsuit | BEIJING (Reuters) - A former personal assistant to an exiled Chinese-born billionaire, who has made claims of high-level Communist Party corruption, has filed a lawsuit in New York accusing him of raping her, court documents show. In the civil complaint lodged with the New York Supreme Court on Monday, the 28-year-old woman said she was lured by the businessman, Guo Wengui, to New York under the guise of a one-week business trip. Instead, she was held captive and ultimately subjected to repeated acts of mental cruelty and sexual violence , the suit says. She is seeking $140 million in compensation. Guo, who lives in New York, denied the accusation, describing it as fake . The complaint says the woman is a Chinese national who was employed by one of Guo s China-based companies. She was told upon arrival in New York that she would work as one of the real estate tycoon s personal assistants, the complaint, reviewed by Reuters, says. It said Guo, also known as Miles Kwok, forcibly took away the woman s passport, threatened her, monitored her internet usage and restricted access to her phone and laptop computer. The woman said she was subjected to verbal and physical abuse, which soon escalated to sexual assault, before she managed to escape to the Chinese embassy in London during a business trip with Guo. After her return to China, the woman provided a statement and evidence of her allegations to police in China, the lawsuit said, without detailing the evidence. The Associated Press reported late last month that Chinese police were investigating the woman s claims. Guo refuted the accusation. Of course it s fake, he told Reuters. He said the robbers of the country engineered the allegations to divert my attention, spread rumors and smear my reputation. Guo, who left China in 2014, has named senior Communist Party officials in a deluge of graft accusations via Twitter posts and video blogs, attracting a loyal online following. He has provided little evidence for his claims. China calls Guo a criminal suspect, and articles in state media have accused him of crimes including bribery, fraud and embezzlement. At China s request, Interpol issued a global red notice for Guo s repatriation in April. Guo lodged an application for political asylum in the United States last week. | 0fake |
Angel Moms React to Donald Trump’s Inauguration: ’Build That Wall!’ - Breitbart | Americans who lost loved ones to illegal alien crime cheered Donald Trump’s inauguration, telling Breitbart News they hope he begins construction of the U. S. border wall quickly. [“It’s incredible,” said one woman whose brother was killed by an illegal alien. “It’s unreal. I’m so happy, so happy, and excited and can’t wait for him to become our president tomorrow. ” Asked by Breitbart News’ Washington political editor Matt Boyle what she wants to see done on Day One of Trump’s presidency, she said: “Build that wall! Build that wall, stop illegal immigration. Keep American families from being killed by illegal immigrants. ” Dan Golvach, whose son, Spencer, was killed by a illegal alien, told Trump to stick to his guns. “Keep being yourself,” Golvach said. “No other candidates that were in this race reached out to us. He did. He treated us like family. He knows us by name. ” “We’ve all seen him when the cameras aren’t on,” he continued. “And he’s sincere. He’s a great man. Full of energy. And I think that if anybody can turn this country around, the way it needs to be, it’s Donald Trump. ” WATCH: Agnes Gibboney, a legal immigrant whose son Ronald da Silva was murdered in 2002 by an illegal alien, said Trump’s promises to enforce immigration meant a great deal. “It means a lot. Not only to me, so I wouldn’t lose another loved one, but to everybody in this country,” she said. “We need to secure our borders, enforce our laws. We need to do what’s right. ” | 0fake |
WHY GROWN MAN WAS ARRESTED In Democrats New “Safe Space” For Pedophiles Is DISGUSTING…Are You Paying Attention Target? | As a mother of three young girls, if anything like this were to happen to one of my daughters in a bathroom, dressing room or shower that is open to potential rapists and pedophiles by a company like say Target they would be looking at massive law suit, as I would consider them an accomplice to the crime.A Pennsylvania man who was arrested for taking photos of a 10-year-old girl in a public restroom has now also been hit with child porn charges, police report.Quarryville, PA, resident James Thomas Shoemaker, 19, was arrested last week when he was found hiding in a stall of the woman s bathroom in the Sheetz store on Manheim Pike. Police said he was taking images of young girls on his cell phone.The arrest comes as progressives step up their judicial and media push to force American adults and youths to share all of their public bathrooms and changing rooms with the small number of people who try to live and look like people of the opposite sex. In mid-April, for example, Target stores announced they would only allow mixed-sex changing rooms and toilets. On April 21, media outlets claimed that Donald Trump supported the progressive campaign to eliminate single-sex bathrooms.In fact, Trump backs the current live-and-let-live policy favored by most Americans, in which they willingly tolerate the quiet use of normal bathrooms by people of the opposite sex. There s a big move to create new bathrooms for transgender [people] that would be discriminatory in a certain way [and] that would be unbelievably expensive for businesses in the country, Trump said April 21. Leave it the way it is, he added.In Quarryville, the suspect was accused of entering the women s restroom and staying there for about an hour. Police also said that while in the facility he looked at pornography on his cell phone and then used his phone to take photos of a child who entered the room. The child alleged that Shoemaker held his cell phone over the top of the stall she was in and recorded her activities.Shoemaker consented to allowing police to look through the images on his cell phone whereupon they discovered nude photos of his girlfriend. But police also learned that the girlfriend is only 16 and now they ve hit the suspect with a felony child pornography charge on top of the third degree misdemeanor invasion of privacy charge he was already facing.The arrest in Pennsylvania comes about two weeks after the arrest of a man in California who was dressed as a woman and caught taking video of women in a Macy s store women s restroom. Via: Breitbart News | 1real |
FBI PANIC! Hillary LIES In First Press Conference While A LEAKED PHOTO From Her Airplane Reveals The Truth | Videos Hillary Clinton FBI PANIC! Hillary LIES In First Press Conference While A LEAKED PHOTO From Her Airplane Reveals The Truth
0 comments Hillary is trying to present a strong front but the truth continues to emerge, in VIDEO and in PHOTOS! Hillary was traveling to Iowa when news broke of the FBI’s newly-reopened investigation of her email practices. Her plane sat on the tarmac for thirty minutes before she emerged, and, of course, the media was hungry for a statement. Last night, the press got their wish, as Hillary tried to appear strong in her first press conference following the bombshell news. Watch Hillary’s statement below:
Mostly, Hillary is echoing her Campaign Manager, John Podesta, who is calling for the release of more information from the FBI.
Right out of the gate, Hillary is already lying in an attempt to minimize the damage that this new investigation is causing.
She clearly states in the video above that the FBI sent the investigation announcement to Republicans in Congress. As a former Senator, Hillary knows this to be untrue, and she is trying to paint the issue as a partisan attack. Fact check: Contrary to what Clinton said, Comey sent letter to both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill. @benyc
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 28, 2016
Multiple media sources have reported that the FBI found new information while investigating the sexting scandal of former Congressman Anthony Weiner. Weiner is married to Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin. When asked about the reports, Hillary responded:
“You know, we’ve heard these rumors. We don’t know what to believe and I’m sure there will be even more rumors that’s why it’s incumbent upon the FBI to tell us what they’re talking about because, right now, your guess is as good as mine and I don’t think that’s good enough.”
Hillary is trying to appear defiant and in control. But, speaking of Huma Abedin, take a look at this leaked photo from inside of Hillary’s airplane after the news had broken: Image surfaces of Huma Abedin crying on plane as Clinton Campaign finds out the FBI has re-opened the email investigation. #HillarysEmails pic.twitter.com/2yIUgiYOsV
We hate to see a lady crying, Huma, but when the company you keep includes Anthony Weiner, sometimes you have good reasons to cry. Perhaps Hillary’s Campaign is not so strong after all. Related Items | 1real |
Study: women had to drive 4 times farther after Texas laws closed abortion clinics | Ever since Texas laws closed about half of the state's abortion clinics in 2013, researchers have been trying to understand just how much burden those laws place on women who are trying to access abortion. That's important because the Supreme Court is now considering those laws as part of Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, the court's most consequential abortion case in decades. If it finds that the laws place an "undue burden" on women, they'll likely be struck down.
Researchers with the Texas Policy Evaluation Project (TxPEP), looking into exactly that, have already found that some women had to wait as much as three weeks longer for an appointment. Some women they've interviewed weren't able to secure an abortion at all, due to the logistical and financial barriers.
Now, TxPEP has published a significant study, in the American Journal of Public Health, on the effects of HB2, the omnibus anti-abortion bill that the Court could end up partially striking down. The study shows just how many burdens were placed on women as a result of the clinics closed by the law.
Researchers surveyed 398 Texas women, comparing women whose nearest abortion clinic was closed in mid-2014 with those whose nearest clinic was still open in April 2013, shortly before the Texas legislature debated HB2.
The results were striking. Of the women surveyed, 38 percent lived in a zip code where the closest clinic was open in 2013 but closed in 2014.
One key finding: Women whose nearest clinic hadn't closed had to travel an average of 22 miles, while women whose nearest clinic had closed traveled an average of 85 miles — almost four times as far. And a quarter of women in the latter group had to travel more than 139 miles to get an abortion.
This was the case even six months after HB2 went into effect, when abortion providers would have had at least some time to adjust to the initial chaos of closures.
Women whose nearest clinics closed had a tougher time by just about every measure: They had to travel farther and pay more out of pocket for things like gas, hotels, and child care.
They were less likely to be able to access medication abortion instead of surgical abortion if they wanted it — probably because Texas law requires four different doctors' visits for medication abortion, which is a lot tougher to manage when you live far away.
Unsurprisingly, they were also more likely to report that it was "somewhat hard" or "very hard" to get care.
Women whose nearest clinics closed also faced more burdens — for instance, they were more likely to both travel more than 50 miles and spend more than $100 on the trip. Twenty-four percent of women in the closure group reported facing three or more different kinds of burdens, compared to just 4 percent of women whose clinics remained open.
And the study only looked at women who eventually got their desired abortion — so it couldn't account for the women who weren't able to get one at all because the burdens were too high.
"This study is unusual in its ability to assess multiple burdens imposed on women as a result of clinic closures, but it is important to note that the burdens documented here are not the only hardships that women experienced as a result of HB2," said study author Liza Fuentes in a statement.
Strangely, there was no significant difference between the two groups of women in how far along they were in their pregnancy when they had an abortion. That's inconsistent with other TxPEP research that found, after HB2 passed, a small but significant increase in second-trimester abortion procedures, which are not quite as safe and a lot more expensive compared to the first trimester procedures.
But that could be explained by a couple of things, the researchers wrote. Either the long wait times forced by HB2 are affecting everyone equally, or the differences were too small to show up in this study.
It's still clear, the researchers said, that the clinic closures after HB2 passed "resulted in significant burdens for women able to obtain care." | 0fake |
Zimbabwe court frees activist pastor arrested for subversion | HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean court on Tuesday freed activist pastor Evan Mawarire, a critic of President Robert Mugabe, following his weekend arrest on new charges of attempting to subvert the government. It was the second time he has been detained for a similar offense. Mawarire went on trial on Monday on separate subversion charges stemming from protests last year against Mugabe s handling of the economy. The magistrates court said the rights of Mawarire, who appeared in khaki prison uniform, had been violated after police failed to bring him to court within 48 hours following his arrest on Sunday morning, as stipulated by the law. Mawarire had earlier attended trial at the High Court but the judge postponed the case to Thursday. The 40-year-old pastor faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison if convicted, and even if acquitted could soon be on trial again. He is due to face yet another trial at a later date on charges of promoting violence after he addressed protesting university students in June. | 0fake |
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Republicans eye alternatives for getting to 20 percent corporate tax rate | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers are considering indirect paths to meeting President Donald Trump’s goal of slashing the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, one of the toughest challenges they face in trying to overhaul the U.S. tax code. Tax writers in the House of Representatives may opt to phase in the 20 percent corporate rate over three to five years by lowering it in stages from the current 35 percent, said two sources close to the tax discussions. A phase-in surfaced as an option among Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee as it closed in on completion of actual tax legislation, working off of a nine-page “framework” unveiled by Trump on Sept. 27. The House was expected to be inactive on Friday and all of next week. “We’ll come back in a week and be able to put together the bill that will move through committee,” Republican Representative Kristi Noem told reporters. One of the biggest problems confronting the Republican tax reform push is the federal budget deficit, which would be hugely expanded by Trump’s proposals, according to independent analyses. Cutting the corporate rate immediately to 20 percent would reduce U.S. tax revenues by nearly $2 trillion over a decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center think tank. Sources said House Republicans believed they could halve the projected revenue loss if the rate cut were phased in. Details of such an option were unavailable. The administration contends the cuts would pay for themselves through stronger economic growth generating new tax revenues, although most economists say that is unlikely. A different approach may emerge from the Senate, where Republicans are writing their own tax legislation. Sources with knowledge of the discussions said senators might settle on a corporate tax rate above 20 percent, but use an unorthodox “corporate integration” strategy to achieve an effective rate of 20 percent or less. Corporate integration, a brainchild of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, would help lower corporations’ tax bill by giving them a deduction for shareholder dividends, analysts said. The idea has faced opposition in the past. Both the House and Senate alternatives surfaced this week as top Republicans and Trump administration officials confronted skepticism that the Republican-controlled Congress could cut the corporate rate to 20 percent without ballooning the deficit. Trump, who earlier in the year called for a 15 percent corporate tax rate and only reluctantly agreed to 20 percent, is now insisting that it go no higher. “The president has made it clear. He wants 20 percent. That’s the one part of this bill that’s not negotiable,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told CNBC. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady told reporters on Thursday: “We continue to drive toward the framework ... ensuring that our businesses don’t have anything higher than 20 percent on the corporate side.” Asked if that meant a 20 percent rate in the first year, he said: “We’re moving toward that whole design.” | 0fake |
Puerto Rico debt financing gap wider in updated restructuring plan: government | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Puerto Rico, struggling to make its debt payments, outlined an increase in its financing gap on Monday, saying it now projects a $16.06 billion hole to fill, cumulatively, over the next five years, an increase of $2.1 billion from a September projection. The Government Development Bank said in an updated Fiscal and Economic Growth Plan (FEGP) released on Monday that at the request of creditors, it had added a 10-year financing gap projection. It now estimates its debt financing hole to grow to $23.9 billion through 2025. Facing over $70 billion in debt and a 45 percent poverty rate, Puerto Rico is trying to solve an economic crisis before it hits substantial debt payments in May and July. It has defaulted on some of its debt and is trying to persuade creditors to take concessions. The increases in the financing gaps occur, “even with the inclusion of economic growth and the implementation of all of the proposed measures in the FEGP,” the Government Development Bank (GDB) said in a separate statement. “Since the release of the FEGP in September, the fiscal and humanitarian crisis on the Island has worsened, and the Commonwealth is now facing even larger estimated financing gaps in both the near and long term. Specifically, the General Fund revenues included in the FEGP have decreased from a previous estimate of $9.46 billion for FY (fiscal year) 2016 to $9.21 billion,” the GDB said. GDB said that as of Jan. 10, it had $667 million of total net liquidity and $535 million in debt service payments during the next 6 months. “As previously indicated, we expect to sit with our creditors shortly and put forth a comprehensive restructuring proposal,” Melba Acosta, President of the GDB said in the statement. Puerto Rico, as a commonwealth of the United States with 3.5 million people, is not allowed to restructure its debt under existing bankruptcy law. It has sought unsuccessfully to convince the U.S. Congress to vote for a change. However, in one development highlighted on Monday by its representative to Congress, Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s hospitals will now receive the same basic reimbursement rate, known as the base rate, by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This was included in the budget passed by the U.S. Congress in December. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that, as a result of this legislative change, Puerto Rico hospitals will receive $618 million more in federal reimbursement payments between 2016 and 2025, an average of over $60 million per year,” said a statement released by Pierluisi on Monday. | 0fake |
Trump says will work with Congress on grants, loans for Puerto Rico | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will work with the U.S. Congress to approve grants and loans to help rebuild Puerto Rico after it was devastated by Hurricane Maria a month ago. Trump, speaking to reporters before a meeting with Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello, said repayment of federal loans to Puerto Rico will come before repayment of the island’s private debt. Before the hurricane, the bankrupt territory was already struggling with $72 billion in debt. | 0fake |
Turkey detains seven people over explosion at Tupras refinery: NTV | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish authorities have detained seven people over Wednesday s explosion in a storage tank at a Tupras refinery which killed four people, broadcaster NTV said on Thursday. The explosion occurred following maintenance work at the company s refinery in the western Turkish province of Izmir, but had no impact on production. | 0fake |
Trump Is Raising Your Healthcare Premiums, And That’s A Fact | It seems like a lifetime since March 23rd, 2010. But thanks to a pretty significant bill signed that day, at least there are no lifetime caps on your health insurance anymore. In fact, there were so many rules and regulations inside Obamacare that benefited consumers instead of insurers that the GOP went absolutely insane trying to undo them. That s no small wonder: Insurance companies gave Republican candidates and conservative groups nearly 37 million dollars in the last election cycle of 2015-16 alone.But the one thing Obamacare didn t do couldn t do was clamp down on premiums. Not without changing the way the entire industry is regulated. The fact is, premiums have been skyrocketing for a long time, and for a simple reason. Insurance companies know you need them more than they need you. In other words, because they can. But an interesting thing happened after the ACA was signed: The rising cost of premiums slowed to less than half the growth rate they were undergoing during the Bush years. Why? Because more people were getting insured.Republicans point to raw numbers and call it an increase that happened under Obama. But the premium increase from 2010 to 2016 was much, much smaller than it would have been without the changes to the system that Obamacare wrought. What will they point to now that premiums are on a fast track again? They won t point to Republican policy or Donald Trump. But I will.The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit health care think tank, has been studying premium growth for nearly 20 years. In fact, if you ve ever read stats on health care who s insured, median cost, what might happen if various bills were passed you were likely looking at KFF data. And according to their latest study, there s a definitive reason that premiums are going up at the rate they re back to: Because Donald Trump is sabotaging the ACA.Trump s constant description of Obamacare as failing is already unhelpful. But his threats to stop cost-sharing subsidy payments are worse. And even worse than that, his persistent badgering of the GOP Congress to repeal Obamacare entirely even without a replacement plan has insurance companies scrambling to figure out how to stay in business. If Donald Trump got his way, after all, the number of people without health insurance in America would double in a very short time. And if you don t have insurance, they don t have a customer.So what s the effect of Trump s sabotage? Premiums are about to go through the roof. Just by threatening to stop enforcing the individual mandate the mechanism that makes Obamacare even work Trump has caused insurers to request rate increases from regulators anywhere from 1.2 percent to 20 percent. And his threats to stop cost-sharing payments bumps that startling figure up to 23 percent.For years, Republicans liked to point to any increase in premiums as the fault of Obamacare. But premium growth slowed as America got used to the idea of a larger risk pool, and it hasn t started under Obama in the first place. Now we can point directly to the actions of Donald Trump as the reason premiums are once again on the rise.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 1real |
Egyptian presidential hopeful apologizes to arrested supporters | CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian presidential hopeful Ahmed Shafik apologized on Saturday to supporters who were arrested this week and called on authorities to resolve the situation. Police arrested three members of Shafik s Egyptian National Movement on Wednesday and charged them with spreading false information harmful to national security, two security sources told Reuters. Shafik, a former prime minister and ex-air force commander who is seen as the most serious potential challenger to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in an election due early next year, apologized for the trouble caused to the detainees and their families. I call on the relevant authorities to clarify the situation quickly, for it is dangerous, Shafik said on his Twitter account. President Sisi, a former military chief, is seen by many Egyptians as the only person able to provide stability after years of turmoil that followed the 2011 uprising that ousted veteran leader Hosni Mubarak. Shafik recently returned from exile in the United Arab Emirates to where he fled in 2012 after a narrow electoral defeat to Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Mursi was removed from office in a military takeover led by Sisi in 2013. Two weeks ago, Shafik said he was still deciding whether or not to run for the presidency in 2018. | 0fake |
Fordham Prof: White Women Choose Patriarchy Over Interests, Democracy ’Set Up to Protect White Women’ - Breitbart | Friday on MSNBC, Fordham University Associate Professor Dr. Christina Greer reacted to President Donald Trump’s White House counselor Kellyanne Conway saying that liberal feminists “have a problem with women in power,” accusing white women of choosing “patriarchy over their own interests. ” Greer added that democracy “is set up to protect white women. ” “Historically, we’ve seen white women choose patriarchy over their own interests,” Greer said. “Well, this whole exercise of American democracy is set up to protect white women, so I think she’s problematic on a host of levels. And I wonder how long she’ll last. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent | 0fake |
Russia Has Shot From 124th to 40th in 'Ease of Doing Business' | The Central Bank sees Russia’s moving up in the Doing Business rating as a good sign, Deputy CEO of the Central Bank Vladimir Chistyukhin told reporters.
"That is a very significant leap and a very positive sign for us. It shows that the efforts we made in many fields, in particular in corporate management were not in vain," he said.
Earlier this week it was reported that Russia moved up to the 40th position in the Doing Business-2017 rating, which is annually prepared by the World Bank.
In 2012, Russia ranked 124th in that rating.
In his May decrees issued in 2012 President Vladimir Putin set the task for the country to reach the 20th position in the rating of the World Bank by 2018.
In 2016, Russia was on the 51st place in the Doing Business rating.
However the methods of calculation of the World Bank’s rating changed earlier this year. Taking into account these changes Russia could have been on the 36th place already in 2015. | 1real |
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